


i just want to know what the light tastes like

by river_of_words



Series: and all that remains in its place [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13 has a bad time!, Angst, Blood and Injury, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loss of Identity, Mostly hurt, Trust Issues, being super triggered but not knowing that's what's happening, being very bad at self-care, but memories being overwhelming is an accurate description i think, but shes determined not to be, i dont want to say flashback because i dont know what flashbacks are like, i keep throwing people at 13 like please be comforted, injuries, it's just referenced, memories blurring into reality, no one does it or even thinks about doing it, self-neglect, so it's hurt/as much comfort as 13 will accept, this needs tags but i dont know what they are so stick with me as i try to tag this right, timeless child stuff implied, walking around with open wounds and not tending to them, which is not a lot but hey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25148239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_of_words/pseuds/river_of_words
Summary: What happens after the Doctor and the Tardis manage to land the wreckage of their own bodies back in Sheffield and everyone has to somehow deal with how much of a mess the Tardis and the Doctor are. But mostly the Doctor. Mostly she's the mess and mostly she's having to somehow deal with it. She does a very bad job at it.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & The Doctor's TARDIS, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/The Doctor's TARDIS
Series: and all that remains in its place [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821742
Comments: 80
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title stolen from here: http://www.playsinverse.com/catalog/exit-pursued.html  
> from the play called 'One-Act Play In Which There Is A Blueprint, & That Blueprint Is Ignored Entirely'
> 
> oh yeah, this picks up right after the end of the first story in this series. so it's like, they crash in sheffield, the tardis shoos the fam out, says to give them 2 hours and then come back. this picks up right at the end of that 2-hour period

116 minutes later, when she’s put herself largely back together again–

_do something about–_

If it’s not infected after she’s been walking around with it covered in mud and oil for what must be at least an Earth week, it’s not going to.

_youre not a good medic, thief_

She narrows her eyes.

_it wasn’t a week_

“How long was it?”

_longer_

She rolls her eyes. “Just say it.”

_nineteen Earth days_

Oh. That’s substantially longer than she thought they’d been on that planet.

“Doesn’t time fly when you’re–”

The Tardis raises her eyebrows. If she had any. She gets across the feeling of skeptically raising her eyebrows very effectively even without having them.

_thanks_

Wait. She rolls up a sleeve and looks at the cuts on her arms. Three weeks. This should’ve been way more healed by now.

“Don’t be smug!” she says, holding up a finger warningly.

_oh so you do listen to me sometimes,_ the Tardis doesn’t sound smug. She sounds tired and upset.

She puts her sleeve down. Now that she’s had enough time to scrape the pieces of herself off the floor and mold them back into the vague shape of the Doctor, the two hour time limit of her little minibreak is starting to feel like Damocles’s sword. She’d be surprised if they don’t knock at the very second two hours have passed.

_your favourite is on the doorstep already_

“What? Who? Who’s my favourite?”

_you know who_

“I don’t have favourites!”

_i can see her. in your head. right now._

She turns around, pulling the hood of her coat up. The Tardis laughs.

_the handsome one and the sensible one are here, by the plants_

A display flickers on, showing Ryan and Graham sitting on a low stone wall a couple of meters away, holding empty tea mugs.

Oh well, see, there you go! They’re going to knock in, she checks the watch she doesn’t own because she’s a bloody time traveller living in a bloody time machine, 3 minutes and she doesn’t have a story yet.

_you have a story_

“No, I don’t!”

_tell them what happened_

“Can’t do that. They’ll want to know where we were going.” They already want to know.

_then tell them_

“What? No. What? NO!”

_they can help_

“With _what?_ ” She throws off her hood, facing the Tardis. “Gallifrey’s gone! It’s not coming back. Not ever. Nothing can save it from this. Not even I can save it from this. Not even a hundred me’s! It’s gone! There’s nothing they can do about that.”

_not Gallifrey, they can help **you**_

She scoffs. “With what?”

The lights flash around the room again. _clean-up_

She looks around, biting her lip. Okay. Yeah. She could use some extra hands here, especially because her movements are still constricted by the pain in her arms and her ribs and her stomach. Which, now that she knows how long it’s been, are way more worrying. Wonderful. Just what she needed. Another thing to worry about.

There is a gentle knock on the door. She jumps. Forgotten about the first thing she was worrrying about! “Doctor?”

She jumps to the door and puts a hand on the lock. The Tardis has unlocked it but it hasn’t been opened yet. By the Tardis or Yaz.

“Yaz?”

“Yeah, we’re all here.”

“Hey Doctor,” Ryan says.

“You okay in there?” Graham asks.

The worries buzz in their voices, like bees. She drops her head against the door. She doesn’t know what to do.

“Can we come in?” Yaz says, gently trying the door.

She puts her weight against it before she can think about it, pressing it shut.

_open the door_

“Uhh,” she tries for a laugh, “it’s a bit of a mess. Not really fit for guests.”

_they’re not guests,_ the Tardis starts just as Ryan says: “We’re not guests, we’re family.”

“So are you going to open that door,” Graham says, “or are we going to have to kick it down? Because we will!” A pause. “Or Yaz will, definitely.”

She lifts her head quickly. “Okay! Okay! No kicking of the door! No kicking! Don’t kick my Tardis!”

_oh **they** can’t, can they?_

“Sorry,” she whispers, and then addresses the fam outside again. “I’m opening it, I’m opening it! Don’t kick her, please.” She trails off, hand on the latch. Just let them in. It’s not that hard. Just let them in, let them help clean up. That’s all.

She opens the door on three faces. Three wonderful faces. Wonderful, worried faces. Growing more worried when they see her. Wait, what does her face look like? She hasnt looked in a mirror in a while. Is there still dirt in her hair?

_yes, and blood_

She looks down, pulling her hood up and pulling her coat closed. Why are there no buttons on this thing? She steps aside to let them walk in, but they don’t. They just stare at her wide-eyed with concern.  
She crinkles her nose “Do I look that bad?”

“No offense, Doc, but–”

“Yes,” Ryan interrupts at the same time as the Tardis also says _yes._

“You can talk,” she mutters to the Tardis.

Ryan looks offended.

“Not you!” she hastens to clarify. “Was talking to the Tardis.”

They step in slowly, taking in the havoc.

“What happened?” Yaz asks quietly.

The Doctor shrugs. “Bit of a crash landing. Two. Two crash landings. Or three? I suppose. Including the one that got us here.” She closes the door behind them.

“Looks painful,” Ryan says.

“Oh, it is.” She laughs, a bit sharper and bitterer than she usually tries to present herself for them. She sighs. “It is.”

The Tardis whirs in agreement, or empathy.

Graham turns to her. “you got a first aid kit somewhere?”

“Got an entire med bay.” She waves a hand in the direction of where the med bay should be, if it hasn’t collapsed yet.

He shakes his head. “I’m not a doctor, I wouldn’t know what to do with all that. I know first aid. Got first aid? In the bathroom maybe?”

A display flickers on with a beep. YES. FOLLOW THE LIGHTS.

A line of lights snakes out of the console room, illuminating a dark corridor. Not all of the lights still work but the path is clear enough. Graham reaches for her hand, she manages not to flinch too hard.

“What are you doing.”

He turns to Ryan and Yaz and gestures at the console room. “Tidy this up a bit.” And starts walking in the direction the lights are pointing, pulling her along.

“Graham!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright so here's the thing with this.  
> i wrote the first story in this series right? i was like, one-shot, 7000 words, good, great. but then i was like, maybe i want to see what happens after theyve landed in sheffield? like maybe i want to see how the fam reacts to this.  
> so i started writing that and accidentally doubled the entire word count in a day. and then i couldn't stop writing. i got possessed. so now im at 20k, but the first 7000 words were kinda nice and round and finished and all of this didnt really fit, but then i realised i can make it a series. so thats what im doing.
> 
> but im not really sure about this part? there are things/ideas in here i kind of like, there are parts of it i dont really like. i feel like it's kinda rough. i feel like if i put in the time and energy i could make it good but i dont have the patience for putting in time and energy. so it's like, idk, a bit messy and meandering and i dont know if anyone's really in character (except ryan, i kinda like ryan in this, i mean i like him in general, you get my point) or believable. i havent really watched any episodes to try to get everyone's voices right while writing this, which i did do while writing the other long fic i wrote with bill.
> 
> honestly my main thing is, 13 is all over the place in this, but i cant tell if it's like distractingly out of character or if it's actually pretty believable with her mental state? i just cant tell! and there's not really any reference in the show for like where she is mentally in this fic. 
> 
> so if you have any feedback, mainly like, if you like it, if you have really indepth very particular things you would change i dont think i could really do anything with that, but if you have any thoughts, like let me know?
> 
> im just gonna post it for now and maybe delete it later in a fit of second thoughts, you know how it is
> 
> also, the chapters are really short, they get sort of more reasonable later on but theyre quite short. sorry about that
> 
> did the thing with the title AGAIN. when will i remember to give! fics! titles!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for timeless child stuff, or like, ramifications of timeless child stuff  
> tw for being a child and not having any power and bad things happening  
> no children get hurt in this, but you know, children got hurt a long time and she doesnt remember that now

They find a bathroom that looks very first quarter 21st century middle class England and Graham finds a first aid kit in the first place he looks, exactly where he keeps it at home, she suspects. She’s shaking her head in protest or dismay or dismissal. He opens the first aid kit and gestures to the sink.

“Wash your hands.”

“What?” She crosses her arms, indignation winning out over the squeezing in her ribs and stinging in her arms. “I’m not a child, Graham. I’m older than you. Lots– like super a lot much older, so much older.” So the words are not really working out for her right now.

He looks at her skeptically. “You don’t act like it.”

“Do too!” Okay that might not have been the best argument for her case. The Tardis snorts.

“And anyway,” Graham pauses, gaze drifting to somewhere just beside her, “you don’t need to be a child to be cared for.” A seam in her soul she’s just spent an hour sewing back shut springs open.

She starts shaking her head adamantly. “I don’t need–”

“We all need to be cared for sometimes. When we get sick.” He looks at her intently. “Or hurt.”

She’s stopped shaking her head, a deer in the headlights, ribs creaking with every fast shallow breath.

“And I think you’re hurt.”

She doesn’t say anything, eyes wide, mouth shut, trying to shove the seam back shut before it spills its dirty secrets.

Graham clears his throat. “So come on, wash your hands.”

“Why.” Her voice is flat. She stares at him. The world is buzzing and shaking. Or maybe she is.

“They’re dirty. Stop being difficult.”

She feels little. Not little as in belittled, or little as in inconsequential. Little as in swinging feet not reaching the ground, little as in listen to your parents, as in let me look at you, does this hurt?, you're being so brave. Little like a child.

“You’re not my parent, Graham.”

“And you’re not my child.”

The Tardis hums in amusement.

“But we can still care for each other, eh?” He makes a face at her that is probably smiling, that is probably gentle and caring and kind. This is not kindness she knows. This is not kindness she does. Her kindness is about doing the worst in the least bad way. About taking a life to save more lives. He is being kind. He cares for her and he’s being kind so she should... do... what... he... says... That seems right. Does it? Yes, it does.

“So wash your hands and let me take a look at what you’re hiding with your coat.”

“I’m not hiding any–”

He points at the sink.

“Fine.”

She washes her hands, shooting irritated glances at Graham – who returns cheerful ones – and carefully not rolling up her sleeves too far.

_not hiding anything_

“Shut up,” she mutters.

“What?”

“Not you.”

He leans against the wall, crossing his arms. “What kind of things does the Tardis say?”

_reasonable things!_

She turns off the sink, dries her hands, transparent orange trickling down from where she got her sleeves wet and the water mixed with the dried blood on her arms.

_very reasonable things!_

She’s about to apologise to Graham for ruining his nice white towel when she realises they’re not actually in his home.

_i’m 90% of her impulse control. i keep her on the straight and narrow!_

A reluctant grin plays at her mouth.

“Eh?” Graham straightens up. “What’s that? What’s she saying?”

“Lies,” she says, grinning, shaking her head disapprovingly. She looks up at the ceiling. “You like to get into trouble as much as I do!”

The Tardis grins and pulls her attention away from the bathroom, back to Ryan and Yaz in the console room.

Graham looks pleased at her smiling. “So how does that work then? Does she talk on a high frequency humans can’t hear? Or what?”

She puts the towel back on the rack. Or tries to, because it slides right back off. She stares at it. “That’s a very inconvenient towel rack you have, Graham.”

He grabs it and hangs it up and is apologising before they look at each other, both realising this is not Graham’s bathroom, and they laugh.

“I guessed it was similar but how much does this actually look like your bathroom at home?” She leans against the wall opposite Graham, folding her arms.

“It’s uncanny actually.” He inspects the drawers. “Even the scratches are the same. How did she do that?”

She smiles proudly. “Telepathic.”

“What?”

“It’s how we communicate too.”

“What, with thoughts?”

She nods.

“Why can’t we hear her? Can’t she be in our thoughts too?”

“No, it’s not–” She pauses, considering how much to say. “It’s just for the pilot.” She decides is not too revealing.

_you could just say you're telepathic too_

Shush.

“Shame, I would have liked to hear her talk. Hearing only your side of the arguments probably distorts our impression a little bit.”

_oh i like him_

She presses her lips together, trying to suppress a grin, but fails.

Graham smiles, curious. “What did she say?”

“She likes you.”

“Ha!” he punches the air. “Tell her I like her too.”

_i know_

“She knows.”

“Okay now take off your coat.”

She reels at the sudden shift in conversation, stepping away from the wall, unfolding her arms. She narrows his eyes at him. “You’re sneaky.” Time to steer Graham back to the console room.

He grins, raising his eyebrows. “I’m raising a teenage grandson. Don’t underestimate me.”

Like a bucket of ice water over her head. She steps back, pulling her coat closer. Electricity running through her skin, her stomach throbs. The Tardis’s full attention is suddenly back in the bathroom with them.

_i’m sorry_ , she rushes, but it’s not fast enough. It’s not enough, period. _i’m sorry. i’m really sorry. i was angry. i was hurt. i shouldn’t have done it. i will never do that again. i’m sorry._

Graham can feel the change in temperature in the room and steps forward, cautiously reaching out his hands. “Whoa, what have I said?”

“Nothing.” She smiles, bright and hollow like a neon light. “Nothing, it’s fine. I’m just gonna–” She takes another step back and turns and has vanished in the maze of corridors before Graham can stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is graham in character? i dont know! i dont know anything with this story
> 
> so i didnt really see this coming when i was writing this but then i had them in this situation and the doctor kinda got all triggered all by herself. and then i was like, you know that makes sense actually, didnt plan it but im keeping it. and i do kinda want to explore that, but like the rest in this fic, it's just all thrown together on a heap in this and none of it really gets the narrative attention or care it should. or at least thats how i feel.  
> or maybe im just seeing like 3 separate stories somewhere in here that i could also write and this whole fic is kinda none of those stories but i havent really figured out yet what it is by itself.  
> i hope it's enjoyable? in some way? 
> 
> like the thing here is, she's triggered before graham says 'dont underestimate me' right? she just doesnt know thats whats happening. and the dont underestimate me is just a nice clear straight line to a recent painful memory+injury so she can focus on that and form all the nebulous Feelings into a narrative kinda surrounding that.  
> it makes sense, is what im saying, to focus all that bad stuff she's feeling from the situation she's being put in, and (mis)identify a source for them and then react to THAT.
> 
> so here: 'Her kindness is about doing the worst in the least bad way. About taking a life to save more lives.' i was just thinking about 12 and his use of the word kind and his actions? and again: i didnt really watch or check any episodes so idk if it even checks out this description of the doctor's concept of kindness. but when i'd written it i was like, you know that could have easily been what tecteun told the child. like 'shes hurting me but she tries not to make it hurt, shes being kind' idk. like i said, there are concepts in here that i think are worth exploring, it's just, unpolished.


	3. Chapter 3

She walks for a while, not knowing where she’s going, just letting her feet match her breaths until her thoughts are less incoherent buzzing and more actual thoughts again and she notices the Tardis talking at her.

_i’m sorry i hurt you. i won’t do it again. i won’t hurt you_

She silently holds up her shaking arms again, hidden by sleeves but the point is still made. Repetitive point. The same blood now dried that was wet the last time she made it. It isn’t an entirely fair point, she isn’t even convinced she believes in the sentiment behind it anymore. She gets it. It was deserved. Eye for an eye. Hole in your gut for a hole in your gut.

_but we don’t do that to each other_

“But we did.”

_i am sorry_

“I am sorry too.” She hesitates. “I shouldn’t have forced you. I should have listened. I will listen to you in future.”

The Tardis snorts. _no you won’t_

“Okay, no I won’t, but I will listen to you about important things!”

 _i doubt it._ The Tardis smiles. _but thank you._

She continues walking, away. She doesn’t really care from what. Just, away. Away away away.

_will you go back now?_

“It’s fine.”

_what is_

She gestures vaguely to her stomach. “It’s just been stressful. I’m sure they’ll heal fine now that we’re back. It’ll be fine.”

_because you aren’t stressed now?_

She scrunches up her face. She doesn’t need things pointed out to her that she’s trying to ignore, thank you very much. – **friends help each other face up to their problems, not avoid them** –

_that’s right_

“You saying I’m right, that doesn’t happen often.” She freezes, realising what she’s just admitted to. She should just stop talking sometimes.

The corridors shift in front of her, opening up to the bathroom again, twenty paces in front of her. Graham jumps up and she turns around. Walking away, she hears the corridor shift again behind her.

_he’s worried about you! i’m worried about you! we just want to take care of you_

She bristles. “I can take care of myself. I’m _clever_ ,” she spits, like it’s going to make her feel less small, less chased, less cornered, less _defenseless_. It doesn’t. Her breathing speeds up and so do her paces.

 _i know, i know that_. The lights in the corridors switch to a soothing light blue. _but you still haven’t cleaned those wounds._

“Neither have you.”

_it’s not going to kill me_

“Psh,” she dismisses, “it’s not going to kill me either.”

 _probably not,_ the Tardis acquiesces, but the corridors shift again, opening up to the bathroom and Graham only ten paces ahead. She turns around again.

“You’re giving me some really mixed messages here. What do you think you’re doing?”

_exposure therapy?_

“That’s not funny.”

_you should clean those wounds or let him help you_

“I don’t want–” to be seen injured. “I don’t _want_ –” hands prodding me, trying to fix my wounds, in a position to make more wounds. “I _don’t want–_ ” she tries again, forcing her mouth to finish the sentence. Why do the words keep evaporating? Why can’t she _say?_

“ _I don’t want_ help.” It’s not the word she means but it’s the word she can say, so it will have to do.

The Tardis sighs. _i do._

She slows down. “What?”

_i’m in pain. i can’t fix it. i want help. your strays in the console room are being very nice but they can’t fix me. you have to fix me._

She feels like she’s being led to some kind of conclusion she’s supposed to draw from that, but she can’t quite manage it. She narrows her eyes.

“I will. Don’t worry. Of course I will. I will fix it, the console, everything that got broken. I’m going to fix it all. Promise.”

The Tardis wavers, caught between two thoughts, and then sighs.

She puts a hand softly against the wall. “You do believe me don’t you? I will fix you. Always. You trust me?”

 _yes._ The answer is immediate but the unsaid continuation of the sentence is heavy.

“But...?”

_i am afraid_

“Of?”

_that you can’t fix me anymore when you can’t fix yourself. doctor._

Instead of the telepathic signature the Tardis tends to use to refer to her, closer to thief than doctor, she specifically invokes the concept of a doctor. Doctor, heal yourself.

The Doctor exhales a long breath, her shoulders, tense and high, dropping down a little. She looks down at herself. Her shirt stiff and dark with dried blood. Her trousers muddy brown and goopy green and oily black, a couple of small holes in them where she’d burned them with live wires. Her hands disharmonious because of how clean they are. She drags them through her hair and tiny flakes of dried mud and blood fall out. She takes as deep a breath as she can manage and makes a decision.

“Okay.”

The corridor shifts. Thirty paces ahead she sees Graham opening and closing the bathroom door like that’s what’s going to make her appear again. Which, from his perspective, she supposes it sort of does.

She takes a shaky breath and starts walking toward him. Some of the fear starts seeping away. Making decisions, that’s what’s it all about. She’d almost forgotten.

Graham keeps the door opens when he notices her. “I don’t get these doors at all, one moment you were there and the next–”

“It’s fine, just had a chat with the Tardis.” She pushes past him.

“What about?”

“She says I should wash my hands too.”

“You already did that.”

“Metaphorically.”

She shoves him out the door and locks it. And then tries to lock it again, more. It’s a flimsy bathroom door turning lock, it’s not going to stop anyone who wants to come in. It wouldn’t stop _her_. Then she decides she doesn’t want to be locked up actually and unlocks it and opens the door again. Graham staggers back in surprise, barely having processed being shoved out before seemingly being welcomed in again. She shuts it again. Come on, just pick one, open or closed. She opens the door again, slowly, not all the way, just enough to block the opening with her body. She smiles her ‘everything is fine’ smile but it’s a lot more convincing this time.

 _it actually is._ The Tardis sounds impressed.

Told you I’m a good actress.

“Graham,” she draws out the m, buying a little bit of time to make sure her next words come out in the right order, “go and join Ryan and Yaz in the console room. I’ll be right there.”

“But what–”

“Washing my hands!”

She closes the door, hears the corridors move outside and Graham’s confused protests. Making decisions. This is good. She can choose to do anything. She can do whatever she wants. She doesn’t have to listen to anyone.

She cleans and stitches the wounds. The first aid kit only has human stuff but the Tardis provides a more Timelord appropriate one in the cupboard. The fabric of her clothes has stuck to the wounds and as she pulls it away she pulls away layers of healing skin and it starts bleeding again. She can look right inside herself and it’s horribly fleshy.

She washes her hands and arms and face and tries to wash her hair but mostly just gets everything wet and her hair is still dirty. The Tardis provides clean clothes and when she puts them on she almost looks presentable again. She looks at her face in the mirror. Stares at it. Wipes away where her breath fogs it up and waits for her face to form the shape of something recognisable. Something that looks like herself, himself, themself. Something that looks like the Doctor.

It doesn’t. It becomes less recognisable. Like a shroud covering her face, she can see the general shape of who she’s supposed to be but none of the details, she can’t remember how to _be_ that.

When she was young, it’d been an exciting game. As anything risky is when you can opt out, or when it’s temporary. To deliberately raise the anchor on yourself, see how far you can get set yourself adrift. Not thinking about what happens after that, about how you’d find your way back to shore. She doesn’t even need any classmates chanting her name at her now, saying it out loud once, alone to the mirror, already makes it feel meaningless. The dizzying thrill of being between bodies and identities and selves that she’d felt when she was young, now felt more like an exhausted kind of disorientation. Existing, but not as anything. Being, without being _someone_. The Tardis unceremoniously shuts off the lights and dunks her in darkness.

“Hey!”

_they're waiting for you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "it all just disappears doesn't it, like breath on a mirror"
> 
> that last paragraph is in reference to eighth man bound of course https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Eighth_Man_Bound  
> this whole fic plus the first part in this series i havent used 'the doctor' much in description, mostly because we're in her pov and it just felt a bit counterintuitive to do that, but also because i dont think shes feeling very 'the doctor' obviously. which is why im trying to be kinda specific about when i use the words.  
> in the first part, what did i call it? 'everything that is on fire cant be saved', i used 'the doctor' in the beginning a few times and then at the end again when the fam's back because i think she comes into view again for herself in relationship with the others. i mean thats what we do right, thats how identity works. so most of that fic in the middle, it's just 'she' (except for a couple sentences which otherwise would be unintelligible, because i also only used 'she' for the tardis in this) because shes not really the doctor in that inbetween time, shes just miserable.  
> and here i only used it very specifically right here: 'The Doctor exhales a long breath, her shoulders, tense and high, dropping down a little.' and it feels a little jarring i think, but it's like she's specifically on purpose trying to put that identity on a little bit there.
> 
> anyway, i think all thats probably obvious, it's not that deep, im just rambling about the doctor because i love her and i dont know where else to put all these thoughts 
> 
> i like the idea that the way the tardis refers to the doctor is this like enormously complex telepathic kind of concept grown out of this initial concept of thief and then built and grown over the centuries, incorporating all the experiences theyve shared. more of a feeling than a word.  
> generally, all of the tardis dialogue here is like, the words are just what the meaning is, you know? like i write the tardis laughs or snorts or raises her eyebrows because thats the feeling she's communicating. same with the words. i dont think theyre really using words in their communication, more like this interplay of emotions and memories and feelings and ideas and intent and things like that. im just writing it with words because its snappier. and when the doctor does talk out loud to the tardis she is using words but like when it's all telepathic, they dont use words.
> 
> uhhh i should stop talking or my notes will be longer than the chapter but let me know your thoughts about the doctor and identity and the doctor and the tardis's relationship or whatever


	4. Chapter 4

The console room looks a lot better. The debris that she hadn’t bothered to throw out and just shoved against the walls is gone. The goop remnants on the floor are gone. Ryan, Graham, and Yaz are sitting on the edge of the platform, cups of tea in hand, chatting. The door is open and daylight, familiar, gentle, Earth, Sheffield daylight, floods the floor. Even the lights around the room look softer, less inflamed.

They look up at her as she comes in. Yaz smiles at her.

She gestures around vaguely. “What have you done, where’s the, the stuff?”

“Cleaned up a bit,” Ryan shrugs.

“But where did you put it?”

“Garbage bin just outside,” Graham says, pointing.

The Doctor’s eyes go round. “Advanced alien technology in an English landfill. Well, that’s something to look forward to I suppose.” She grins and joins them on the floor. Graham pushes a cup of tea in her direction. She takes it and looks around.

“How did you get the goop off the floor?”

“Same soap we use at home for the floors,” Ryan says.

“Grace said it cleans everything,” Graham adds.

“So Ryan said it probably does alien gunk too,” Yaz says.

“Well, apparently it does.” She looks at Ryan. “Thank you.”

He smiles and holds up his cup in acknowledgement. 

The silence is filled with the buzzing of the Tardis around them and she takes a sip of tea.

“What happened in here?” Ryan asks, and the Tardis’s destruction is a marginally easier subject to take on than her own so she jumps on it.

“Temporal motors exploded.” She points at the makeshift console. “Under there.” She mimics an explosion with her hands. “Boom.”

“Temporal motors, what’s that?” Ryan asks. Another question she can answer!

“Three motors, the way they interact, it’s what determines where the Tardis goes in time, and how fast.”

“Wow,” Ryan says, “that’s so cool. How do they do that? How does that work?”

“Uhh,” she takes a sip of tea, imagining the workings of the temporal motors she’s just spent almost three weeks putting back together into a frankly kind of abysmal approximation of what they should be and which now are really not properly connected to the rest of the Tardis and which will probably give out at any moment and must still hurt a lot. “... really complicatedly.”

“How did they explode?” Yaz asks, and the Doctor glances at her quickly before focusing on her tea again, knowing where she’s being led and not wanting to go there.

_see how that feels_

She rolls her eyes and then focuses on Yaz, putting on her bright face. “They just exploded! Just like that. Don’t know why. Bad maintenance, probably. Never do maintenance, me. Used to–” Oh wow, she just stepped in that one voluntarily! She backpedals, scrambling to get onto steadier ground. “Just old, I guess. Should’ve been replaced a while ago but you know how it is, hard to get your hands on good replacement... parts...” She trails off. – **that’s the drawback of being the last of your species, no one to ask when your Tardis won’t start** –

She fidgets and gets up, leaving her tea and the others on the floor, walking around the console room, fading from view in the lower light and behind what remains of the pillars.

It’d been so easy. _How_ had it been so easy?! She’d said that to a child, without thinking twice. Maybe she needs a child here. Maybe a child would be easier to talk to. No, it would not, she decides a second later. It absolutely would not.

_you’d had time then_

“Shut up.”

“We didn’t say anything,” Ryan says, leaning back so he can look around a pillar at her.

She keeps her face in the shadows. “Wasn’t talking to you.”

“Don’t tell the Tardis to shut up!” Yaz says, insulted on the Tardis’s behalf.

“Yeah, be nice to her,” Graham says.

Oh great, now it’s four against one!

_we’re not against you_

“Is that why it was making that noise when we landed on Poosh?” Yaz asks, thinking. Always thinking, her. They always are, aren’t they. She knows how to pick them. Too clever for their own good. Just let it be, Yaz. Don’t try to figure it out, please.

“Wait a sec, did you know they were going to explode?” Graham asks.

“No!”

“Did you leave so they would explode somewhere it wouldn’t hurt anyone?” Ryan asks.

“Except you,” Yaz adds quietly.

She stops walking and stands in front of them, blocking the light from the door on their faces. “No, no, and no. I didn’t know they were going to explode. And I didn’t nobly sacrifice myself if that’s what you’re thinking.” She wasn’t being noble at all, she was being selfish, that’s why all this happened, because she was being selfish.

“Then why did you leave?” Oh, she walked right into that! She’s really off her game. She turns around. There's bird hopping around just outside the Tardis door.

“I left...,” she starts, trying to come up with something plausible, “to go get replacements parts for the temporal motors!” She turns to them, triumphant. Meeting three very unimpressed faces. Yes, maybe she should’ve been less obviously happy about coming up with a good enough lie. In hindsight.

Yaz gives her a look that seems to say ‘how stupid do you think we are’, Ryan presses his lips together, Graham gestures for her to sit down.

“Jig is up, cockle.”

She sighs and sits down, glancing at Ryan and Yaz. She’s disappointed them.

“I went–” she pauses. Last chance. “–home.” There it went.

She looks at her half-full cup of tea growing cold on the floor. Here come the questions. What is she supposed to tell them?

_something small, something you’re thinking about_

She picks up her cup from the floor. “Nothing I’m thinking about is small,” she whispers at her tea, more thought than words.

_something you miss_

She huffs. “Just the one thing?” She doesn’t get a response to that. “Why are you doing this?”

_they can help. they don’t know Gallifrey but they know home. they know what missing home is._

“Home?” Graham asks.

“Why?” Yaz asks,

“You homesick?” Ryan asks, and oh does that hurt. Does that take her hearts straight out of her chest and stomp on them. She snaps her eyes to him and they’ll be wide and shiny because this face is a traitor and keeps ratting her out.

“Yes,” she whispers, barely more than lips moving. She holds Ryan’s gaze like she can make him understand with just her eyes what she’s feeling, like she can make him feel it too. “Very.”

Yaz gently rights the tea cup in the Doctor’s hand before it spills over.

“It’s okay if you want to go home now and then, Doc. You could’ve told us,” Graham says, so understanding.

“Yeah, we don’t have to come if you don’t want us to,” Ryan adds.

“We just want to see where you’re from but only when you’re ready,” Yaz says.

She looks at them, her fam, with their gentle understanding and endless patience, and almost wants to smile. To live in their fantasy for a bit, where home is a place you can return to, to have it exist by virtue of not knowing it’s destroyed yet.

_don’t do that_

I’ve done it before.

_and remember how that worked out_

Not that well.

_not that well_

But– “The sky’s a burnt orange.” It bursts from her mouth before she can stop it. She slams a hand over her mouth.

_keep talking_

I don’t want to.

_yes you do_

Yes, she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently jig is up is an american idiom. i cant find what the uk equivalent would be. hope thats not too jarring. sorry if it is
> 
> i like 13 in this chapter. it's like, she almost presents herself like how she normally presents, but she's unstable. like you can kinda feel the effort she's expending to mend the holes in the façade. she's yielding to some of the questions hoping to be able to make the fam sail around the things she really doesnt want to talk about. which doesnt work out. at all.
> 
> okay this fic is kinda growing on me. theres more story here than i thought there was. i mean, it's still mostly just a river of Feelings but it's slightly less of a mess than i thought it was. just have to figure out how it ends.
> 
> let me know what you thought :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello im back with another chapter of pain and way too many Thoughts in the chapter notes
> 
> tw for memories seeming more real than the actual things you are looking at

“Red grass, red fields.” She stretches out a hand like she’s showing them the landscape and Ryan follows her gaze like he’ll be able to see what she’s describing.

“As far as you can see. As far as you can _run_. And–” She stumbles over her tongue for a second. Yaz takes the cup of tea from the hand still in her lap.

“In the background, mountains. Always mountains. Whichever way you turn eventually they are there. Red mountains. With snow, white like teeth, like bones.”

“That sounds beautiful, Doc,” Graham says. If slightly creepy, he thinks.

She grins at him, wide, eyes glistening, sharp and slightly unhinged.

“Yess,” she draws out the s. “You have _no_ idea.”

She’s grinning but it almost sounds like a reprimand. Like they _should_ know. Like everyone should know how beautiful her home is.

“And the smell after rain!” She breathes in.

“Petrichor?” Yaz asks.

“Madevinia aridosa,” she says breathlessly, grasping Yaz’s gaze. Yaz’s eyes widen with curiosity, fascination.

“Oh, they smell amazing! But you should see them in the dark. They glow!” Her face is full of wonder. “They glow at night! But don’t tell them! Sh, sh, sh.” She puts a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell them I was out at night! It’s not allowed! Sh!”

Graham catches Yaz’s sideways glance.

“Tell who, Doctor?” she asks.

“We won’t,” Ryan says seriously, like he’s being trusted with an important secret.

“But the best thing–” she shifts over closer to them, “–you have to go into the cadonwood forests,” she looks at them like she’s trying to determine whether they’re appropriately excited for the knowledge she’s about to share with them.

“When you climb up the trees, and you have to be up really early, when the moon is still up. And Koschei teases me because he says ‘look the moon is still up’ but I say ‘the other moon, stupid’, anyway, you have to climb up when it’s still dark and the moon is still up right? But be careful because you can’t see so you have to pick a good tall tree, with lots of leaves, that’s important, that’s VITAL, you have to get the tree with the most leaves, Koschei wants it too but we’ll race for it but he’s a slowpoke and I’m always faster, he’ll say not always, but that one time didn’t count because I was sick and he wasn’t so it wasn’t fair. Anyway, so you pick the best tree and you have to practice during the day until you can climb it with your eyes closed. You’ll fall out a bunch of times but that’s okay, that’s normal, don’t be embarassed. When you can climb it to the top with your eyes closed, then you sit and wait for the second sun to rise and when it does–” she gasps “–the trees catch fire! The light bounces between the leaves making them red and orange and shining into your eyes until you can’t see anything but dancing fiery kaleidoscope and you get all dizzy and sometimes you fall out and break your arm but that’s fine too because you got to see _that_!”

She exhales like someone coming up for air.

“And then you climb down when the second sun is all the way up and you sit under the tree and you eat dried magentas out of your pocket.” She grins. “It’s the best.”

She moves the hand that’s still in her lap like she expects it to still have a cup of tea in it and frowns when she finds it empty.

Ryan pushes it towards her over the floor. She picks it up, takes a sip, and grimaces. “This is cold.”

Graham’s uneasy. Something is wrong. The Doctor’s eyes are sharp and glassy and her grin is way too bright. And he barely caught half of that waterfall of words but it definitely didn’t seem like she was talking to them. Or was aware that she was talking to them. He glances over at Ryan and Yaz, Yaz catches his eye, looking worried too. Ryan is being distracted by the Doctor telling him another story.

“Doctor,” Yaz starts carefully, she reaches out like she wants to touch her, pull her back to them from wherever she’s gone. Graham’s having the same instinct so when Yaz wavers, not quite daring to touch her, he puts his hand on the Doctor’s knee. Her attention snaps from Ryan to Graham’s hand, staring at it. He’s not sure if that’s a hostile sort of look or if she’s just confused and not processing what she’s seeing or feeling.

“Doctor,” Yaz tries again, looking from Graham to the Doctor. The Doctor’s gaze snaps to Yaz as she swipes Graham’s hand from her knee like it’s an afterthought. An accident almost.

He slowly takes his hand back. That wasn’t an accident. That _really_ wasn’t an accident. And the sharp and calculating way it was made to look like an accident, like it was clumsy, is making his blood run cold. He glances at Ryan and Yaz and shifts forward a little bit, alert, more ready to intervene in whatever’s coming next.

“Who is Koschei?” Yaz is asking.

“Just my friend!” Still that painfully bright grin.

“Your friend?” Yaz frowns.

“Of course! Why would I spend my time with someone who wasn’t my friend? Oh! I haven’t told you about the Schlenk Blossom fields!”

“Can we meet him?” Yaz interrupts.

“No.” She says it so fast, Graham barely catches it as she’s already moving into another monologue.

“Schlenk Blossoms, they don’t grow anywhere else, you know. I’ve looked. Some flowers come close, but nothing can match that smell. We would run through the fields and if you stick out your hands–” she spreads her arms, flinging cold tea over the floor. She doesn’t seem to notice. “Shake loose the pollen, oh the smell! It’s amazing! It’s like– It smells like–” She falters, looking for words. She’s fidgeting, bouncing her knee.

“Home?” Ryan suggests.

She snaps her fingers. “Yes! Like home! Ten points for Ryan! Oh did we keep score? I forgot to keep score!”

“Why not?” Yaz asks, and it takes Graham a second to track what she’s responding to but the Doctor doesn’t miss a beat.

“We’re not friends anymore,” she says, sharp and low and without even looking away from Ryan. Graham narrows his eyes. He doesn’t like to mistrust his friends, but she’s not having a lot of trouble tracking the conversation for someone acting so scattered.

“Why not?” Yaz repeats.

The Doctor snaps her gaze at her, and involuntarily Graham shoots out a protective arm in front of Yaz. Yaz jerks back slightly.

“Because those fields dont exist anymore.” Her eyes are dark and her voice is low. “And those friends are dead.”

She jumps up, bright again.

“Alright!” She slips on the spilt tea but catches herself before she falls. “Gonna need some time to repair the Tardis properly. You guys want some time at home. See you back here in a week.” Her gaze darts over the console room, dancing right over and between them, not falling on any of their faces. “Maybe two.” And she has vanished into a dark corridor before any of them can react.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i keep describing the doctor as either bouncy or sharp. and then im like 'i used this word again is this repetitive' but idk i think it's accurate. thats just her two moods. bouncy or sharp. she's like that language experiment thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect
> 
> i had this one line in chapter 3 like ‘told you im a good actress’ which is kinda about the same idea that this chapter touches on that like the doctor is actually kinda creepily good at pretending?  
> there was this line in this fic https://archiveofourown.org/works/24773311 like 'Whoever this woman is, Bill thinks, she’s a much better liar than she originally seemed to be.'  
> and i like that concept. i dont think the doctor is deliberately presenting herself as ummmm whatever state she is in right now, in order to like trick anyone, i think there's definitely a lot of behaviour here she's not consciously in control of.  
> it's not like someone pretending to be really bad at that game with the balls and the sticks people play in bars, and then at the last game with the highest stakes suddenly playing really good to con everyone out of their money.  
> but whatever is happening on the surface, like during s12 people can definitely see through her façade of 'fine' more, i think there are also many more layers underneath that where she's still always lying and hiding automatically. i mean there has to be right, the amount of lying the doctor has to do in their life to keep safe and keep other people safe and everything. theyve got a lot of secrets to keep. rule 1: the doctor lies
> 
> and seeing someone who looks like theyre lying badly, suddenly lie very well, thats kinda creepy. because then you cant trust anything they show you, even if it seems like it's disclosed involuntarily. it makes her slightly scarier. and also the doctor is kinda really dangerous, they can do like really scary things, and so if you suddenly cant be sure of their intentions anymore, or like their emotions or what theyre responding to, thats scary.  
> and i like the doctor as this big scary being squished into the identity of a trying-to-be-good-almost-human. and then having that big cosmic uncanniness of her leaking through the cracks sometimes. thats nice. anyway. thats also grahams experience here 
> 
> i think graham generally trusts the doctor to keep ryan and yaz safe? especially because in most situations they land in she has a lot more experience, and also gets them out of it. but i also think he'd be very alert to when she wouldn't be able to do that anymore, and he'd put ryan and yaz first at that point.  
> and ryan, okay i hope this comes across in the text because, what i think ryan would do, what he basically does in this entire fic, is like, just empathy. you know that moment in 12x5 when she's like 'im looking for the master' the way ryan says 'i thought he'd be the last person you wanna see' it's like, he just accepts whatever she's feeling and listens to understand? i feel like he does the same thing with tibo. like he wont be pulled into the other person's irrational emotions, wont enable it or anything, but he would try to understand i think. we dont really get ryans pov at any point in this fic but thats what i think he's doing. he's just listening and trying to like Hear Her and Understand. the doctor's and ryan's relationship is reaaally interesting i think. like theres the parallel with the doctor and his dad and theres the thing about using weapons. and ryans just so good and kind, hes just doing Empathy at her like all the time  
> and yaz is just trying to put all the pieces together, which like good for her but the doctor doesnt even have all the pieces at this point so good luck


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw dissociation and idk unclear reality? what's the name for that? unreality?

She knows something’s wrong almost immediately. She knew it right when she said those first words. It was a creaking groaning dam and it’s broken now and she doesn’t know what’s behind it except that it’s a **lot**.

She’s known for weeks, for months, for years, forever maybe. She can’t talk about this, can’t mention it, can’t acknowledge it, because this is not a story that is told with images and words. It’s not a story in her head she can tell with her mouth. This is a story twisted and woven through her body and sharing it means unravelling herself. Not unravelling like thread or rope, unravelling like butchery, like taking apart a being, turning it into disembodied and digestible parts. Unravelling like timelines unravel, with lots of blood and guts and ghosts and it is not pretty and it is not painless and she is scared because she will not be her at the end of it and she doesn’t know what she’ll be and she is scared.

Words force their way out of her mouth of their own accord, like bile from a place so deep inside her that it hasn’t seen the light of company – correction – hasn’t seen the light of _polite_ company in centuries. Company that doesn’t appeal to the worst parts of her (the best parts of her). 

The words, both knife to her throat and blood from her arteries, (someone get a bucket this is gonna make a mess), are unconcerned with her, leaving her gasping for breath, for space, for a break, for wait wait wait–

Something is wrong.

Something’s been wrong. She’s not seeing what she’s looking at. Or she’s not looking at what she’s seeing. She’s not talking to the people she’s talking to. She isn’t where she was. She wasn’t here, she was... somewhere else.

She blinks, trying to see through the illusion because this isn’t right.

But it is! It is _so_ right! This is what the universe is supposed to be!

**_crack_ **

But it isn’t.

This isn’t what the universe is.

What she’s seeing is not what she’s looking at.

But the words still hold her mouth and throat and lungs.

Hand on her knee. It’s empty and silent and hollow and wrong. Echoey empty. That’s wrong. It’s not supposed to feel like that. Koschei doesn’t feel like that.

She swipes the intruder away.

**_crack_ **

What she’s seeing is cracking and splintering and what she’s looking at is slowly and reluctantly phasing into view again.

“Who’s Koschei?” Yaz asks.

She’s not in her body but she’s not outside of it either. She’s trapped on the border. Not in control of her words or actions but not allowed the relief of being detached from them either. She’s hyperaware of the way the words are forcing her mouth to move into their shapes.

She grapples for control back, but the words are quicksilver and too volatile to grab onto. Until:

“Can we meet him?”

“ **No**.”

There.

She plants a flag, marks a spot, a way back into her body. It’s not a border yet. It’s a point. Hers now, as she waits for another opening.

“Why not?” Yaz asks.

There it is.

“ **We’re not friends anymore**.”

Two points is a line. Her vision becomes slightly sharper in a way that she hadn’t realised it was still fuzzy. She scrambles back behind the line, from liminality back into being a body. She blinks and licks her lips and shakes out her hands and she’s got her mouth back and her words back and her hands back and her walls are blown wide open and she’s unprotected _and_ she’s cornered.

“Why not?” Yaz repeats.

And she wields her words like a whip, lashing out cruelly and cowardly at her family who doesn’t deserve it, with the worst words she can imagine:

“ ** _Because those fields don’t exist anymore. And those friends are dead_** _._ ”

Somewhere she knows, this is wrong, this is bad, this is not who she is, or who she is supposed to be, but she’s forgotten a little bit, maybe, who she is supposed to be.

She knows her own name. Now, again. She is the Doctor.

But who is that. – **never cruel or cowardly, never give up, never give in** –

But she _has_ given up, and she _is_ giving in, to her worst impulses, to the easiest way out, to her fear, because there’s no one here to tell her no, to tell her stop, to tell her this is not who she is, or who she is supposed to be.

And she doesn’t know who she is and she is scared. She can’t make things fit into a story, into the story of her, the story of the Doctor. And all the words she reaches for to tell it come warped and sharp out of her mouth.

Because she is scared and doesn’t offense feel like defense, doesn’t hostility feel like security and isn’t being scary better than being scared.

She is scared. She needs to run.

She jumps up, slips, catches herself, throws at them an image of the Doctor she knows how to play. It’s not her best performance, she’ll admit, but given the circumstances she thinks it’s quite decent, if she might say so herself, she needs to run, _now_.

Corridors unfold themselves in front of her, allowing her to run without having to slow down or turn for corners. She drops her coat without stopping. Her ribs start to hurt badly as her breathing’s getting laboured and the skin on her stomach is wet and hot, but oh well she never could stitch, she’s not a real doctor, is she.

_that was wrong_

She knows.

“What are you talking about.”

_you know_

She said too much, she was mean, she was cruel, and she said way too much.

“I don’t remember.”

_yes you do_

She’s not sure she does.

“I was cruel, I was a coward.”

She was afraid.

_yes you were_

She stops running abruptly, almost trips over her own momentum, because there’s someone in her way.

A little girl. Red hair. 

“Amelia,” she pants, her whole body screaming in pain, which is prefereable to the chaos in her head. Her mind’s spinning, trying to catch up with what’s happening. Her legs are suddenly very weak. Maybe she shouldn’t have been running so much. She reaches for the wall, crashes into it when her arms don’t want to support her weight either – stupid limbs, what are they even good for – and slides down to the ground with her back against the wall. How much blood loss is too much blood loss?

_this, maybe is too much blood loss_

She grimaces and puts a hand to her stomach, it’s very hot and very wet and pulsing in time with her hearts.

_your stubbornness is going to get you killed_

“I know,” she breathes, eyes on the little Amelia, who sits down against the opposite wall.

They sit in silence for a while as she gathers enough breath to talk again.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” she manages eventually.

Amelia cocks her head and frowns at her. “You look weird.”

She smiles vaguely. “Do you say that because of the–” she gestures at her face “–or because of the–” she gestures at the blood seeping into her clean shirt.

“Yes,” Amelia says.

She nods. “Thanks.”

“You sound weird too.”

“You still sound the same,” she says, fondness and nostalgia and christmases and weird midnight snacks and loss welling up in her chest.

And then it’s Amy smiling at her.

“Pond...” she breathes.

“What’s happened to you, Raggedy man?” Her tone is gentle but resolute. “Have you been taking stupid lessons again?” she says in that uncompromising Scottish way of hers. That uncompromising Scottish way she had taken as an example and tried to emulate.

Amy who didn’t have parents but then did. Amy who had a child but then didn’t. Amy who knew how to be a family. Amy who had given _her_ a family. Who’d taught her how to _be_ a family. Who knew who she was and embraced her as she was and steered her straight when she veered too far off the path.

“Have you forgotten everything we’ve taught you?” Amy goes blurry and tessellated with light.

_tears_

Oh, apparently her vision goes blurry and tessellated. She blinks the tears away.

“Thousand years since fish custard, can’t remember everything,” she mumbles, looking at the floor.

“You need someone to remind you then.”

She nods slowly. “I know.”

“What happened to your coat?”

She startles, looks up to her right. It’s Clara, it’s her Clara.

“Clara,” she breathes, “oh. I–” she waves a hand in the direction from which she’d come running, “–lost it, somewhere back there.”

Clara kneels next to her and takes her hands. “When I said 'no one else will suffer', I didn’t mean it was okay for you to suffer”. Clara’s hands are soft and warm and they feel so alive. She slides her pinky against Clara’s wrist, waits, presses a bit firmer, waits. There’s nothing. Stillness of death.

“Are you still out there?” she whispers. “Did you go back in time, or are you still out there now? Stuck between heartbeats?” Forever.

Clara doesn’t respond, instead she asks, “What did they do to you?” – **how far, Doctor? –** **how many lives have you had** – “What happened to the Doctor?”

“Lost her, somewhere... back... ”

“Where?”

“I can’t be the Doctor all the time,” she says by way of answer, because the space in herself where the actual answer lies feels like infinite depths, feels like hungry darkness, feels like a mouth to swallow her whole, feels like a space so big that its gravity is warping her around its edges, making time move strange. Better not to touch it.

“You should try to find her again.”

Clara stands up and hands her her coat.

She frowns. “No wait, you’re not– here. You can’t–” She looks up from the coat bundled up in her hands to Clara’s face.

It’s not Clara. It’s Ryan.

“Found your coat.”

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i like this chapter. i also think it could be better if i put more time and effort into it. maybe i'll just cannibalise this entire fic in a couple of weeks and actually develop some of the ideas properly.  
> is it even clear whats going on in this chapter? i dont know  
> do i even know whats going on in this chapter? not really. maybe? a little? i know what i was thinking but i dont know if it makes sense. not sure this fic has any continuity at all that makes sense. like where is it even supposed to be set? who knows what? i dont know! im just writing it!
> 
> but i like this chapter, especially the first part, so here's what i imagine is going on: the unconscious implicit unknown trauma of the timeless child is mixing with the conscious explicit known trauma of gallifrey. so there's feelings/implicit memories coming from a place she's unable to identify, being attributed to the conscious memories of gallifrey.  
> im not sure it makes any sense, but i kinda like how it turned out.
> 
> and clara and amy are not clara and amy but more like, the tardis is doing that. like 'im not amelia pond i am a voice interface' but upgraded to spit out old lines like a selfhelp program. and i think the doctor is aware of that.
> 
> ALSO! im sure people have already mentioned this somewhere, there's so much 12/clara stuff on tumblr, but have you seen the doctor's face when clara says 'i will die and no one else here or anywhere will suffer'? his eyes go shifty to the side real quick and then he asks 'what about me' and im 100% that that was a loophole he noticed. im 100% sure he heard 'no one else is allowed to suffer to bring clara back but she didnt mention me' and so he asks what about me and clara hears the one question but she doesnt hear the other one, which is 'am i allowed to make myself suffer to bring you back'.  
> because no one else is allowed to suffer but by the rules she set, HE CAN. so he exploits that loophole in clara's order for 4,5 billion years and then clara finds out in hell bent and she's like 'oh no this is my fault'  
> seriously the way he asks, it's like he's seeing an opportunity.  
> anyway


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw mention of self harm, also brief description of cuts

Graham and Yaz round a corner to find Ryan sitting down next to the Doctor against the corridor wall. Him, legs crossed, her, knees against her chest, bundled up coat between them on the floor like a barrier. Graham and Yaz silently sit down against the opposite wall, exchanging a look with Ryan.

The Doctor doesn’t look up, but clearly notices their arrival because she asks, “How long have you been here?” She sounds small. It’s not a deflection, she’s genuinely uncertain. Graham’s heart aches for her. The hostility is unpleasant, but it’s better than this.

“We just found you,” Ryan says.

“Oh,” she breathes a small laugh, eyes still on the floor. “Good.”

She doesn’t say anything more. Neither do they. They sit in silence for a while, which is more than they’ve done together for a good couple of weeks. Graham’s trying to figure out what to say. Maybe Ryan and Yaz are too. Maybe the Doctor is just waiting for them to leave, too tired or out of it to actively try and shake them off again. He tries to see her face, determine if she wants to be alone. But sometimes you shouldn’t leave people alone even if they want to be. And this feels like such a case.

Anyway, he’s not going to figure out what she wants if she doesn’t say it. Her face is empty and still, he can’t read her. Her face is so open until it isn’t. She’s so readable until she goes still. Or maybe, he realises, and this might be worse, her face is still open, and there’s just nothing happening behind her eyes.

His eyes rest on her arms, flopped listlessly to the floor like she doesn’t have the energy to position them properly. Deep gashes with angry pink edges stare at him, half-healed, like they are trying their hardest to fully close but can’t quite manage it. He’s not a nurse, but those should’ve been stitched, he thinks.

That’s what she’d been hiding under her coat. Or, one of the things, at least. He’s not convinced there isn’t more. She’s like a cat, hiding its illness until it drags itself into the most unreachable dark hole to die. That’s a bit of an unsettling comparison. Oh God, she’s not dying, is she?

He eyes the wounds on her arms again. He’s never seen her this injured, he realises, and he doesn’t know how to feel about that. They’ve seen her hurt, but never this literally ripped open. She looks a lot less invincible, a lot more like a human. Who can die.

She wouldn’t have done it herself. She might have been the cause of it, in some way, taken a risk that didn’t pay off, tempted fate a little bit too daringly, but she wouldn’t have done it on purpose. Right? He wants to be more sure than he feels.

A couple of months ago, he would’ve been sure. He was a bus driver, he knows how to read people and, working around the parts of herself she stubbornly keeps locked away, he thought he knew her fairly well. Not the big alien things about her, but just day to day, in the mundane ways, he knew who she was, what she was about.

But lately she changes like quicksilver, the Doctor he knows dropping away and revealing something else underneath, something he can’t quite get a fix on, and then she pops back up again, so quickly and completely, like she’s never been gone, like she’s denying that other side of her, or rejecting it. The Doctor he knows is starting to feel like a performance. But if it’s all a performance, then who is performing?

Ryan is the first to speak up, “What happened to your arms?”

She looks up, startled back to them from wherever her thoughts had been taking her. She looks at her arms like it’s the first time she’s seeing them.

“Accident?” she says, almost like it’s a question, like she’s asking them if they’ll accept that as an answer.

“An accident?” Yaz asks, skeptically. Her worry comes out as confrontation and Graham isn’t sure that’s exactly what they need right now.

But there’s no imminent argument he needs to diffuse. The Doctor isn’t even focused on Yaz, she’s looking up at the ceiling like she’s listening, which she probably is, and then gently thumps her head back against the wall.

She licks her lips. “I was trying, ah, I was doing repairs, trying to do repairs– You saw the console?”

“Yeah, it’s gone,” Ryan says.

She nods and indicates with her hands. “Temporal motors are down here, console is up here, ten meters between, all torn apart. I was in there, halfway up. I fell.”

“Five meters down?” Ryan asks.

“That’s nothing,” she says, so dismissively it almost feels like it’s _meant_ to be an insult, “but what was left of the motors was still down there. And it was sharp.”

Yaz softens. “That must’ve hurt.”

“Yep,” she says, condescending, like water is wet, like she’s just humoring Yaz’s attempt at empathy. Then she groans at the ceiling and whispers, “No.”

“No what?” Ryan asks.

“They’ll just worry,” she hisses.

“Oh, too late for that,” Graham says, “we’re plenty worried already.”

She grimaces. And then, slowly, slides her legs out in front of her.

“Oh my god,” Yaz jumps up, “you’ve been bleeding out this whole time?” Graham goes cold, that’s a lot of blood. And she didn’t tell them. At all. Hid it, scarily well. And then disappeared into a dark corridor. She wouldn’t just have let herself die, would she?

The Doctor jerks away from Yaz’s outstretched hands. “I’m not bleeding out, don’t be _ridiculous_.” It’s mean and Yaz looks hurt but it’s also the snarl of a wounded animal and Graham’s pity is larger than his anger.

Yaz hesitates, in the middle of the corridor, halfway to the Doctor. Graham moves closer too, the Doctor flinches and tries to get up but the blood loss has taken its toll and she just falls sideways into Ryan.

“ _Don’t touch me._ ”

“Okay,” Ryan holds up his hands, calm and open, unperturbed, unafraid. “I won’t.” He moves out of the way, letting her push herself back up.

“Doc, I don’t know what’s gonna kill you or what isn’t so I’m gonna trust you that this isn’t but–” The Tardis makes a noise, but he can’t tell whether it’s agreement that this won’t kill her or a warning that it _will_. “But regardless of whether it will, we need to stop the bleeding.”

“Yes fine, I got it.” She groans as she reaches for her frumpled coat on the floor and Ryan hands it to her.

“If you’ve got two hearts, will you bleed out faster?”

“ _Yaz_ , I can handle it.”

“Clearly not!”

She presses the coat to her stomach. Graham doubts that’s going to be enough.

“It stopped bleeding on its own last time, I’m fine.”

“Never gonna believe that word again, coming out of your mouth,” Yaz mutters, sitting back down against the wall. The Doctor glares at her.

“Your coat’s gonna be all bloody,” Ryan says.

She shrugs. “I can get a new one.”

After a couple moments in which they all settle back into uncomfortable silence, the Doctor mutters, “You can go now.”

Yaz scoffs and opens her mouth to say something but Ryan is quicker. Catching the Doctor’s eye, with sincere eyes and the careful beginnings of a teasing grin. “Yeah, you wish.”

She doesn’t smile, just looks at him, scared and lost, and whispers, “No, I don’t.”

There’s a sensation of a shared exhale, as if everyone had been waiting for that admission. Including the Doctor.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Graham says, “we’re staying right here.” He’s not sure if he means this uncomfortable corridor floor for an indefinite amount of time, or in the Tardis, in the Doctor’s life.

“Will you accept that?” Yaz asks. “And tell us things? Like that you’re injured? Or what’s wrong?”

“I can’t,” she says, very straightforwardly, not even trying for deflection. Is that a good sign or a bad sign?

“Won’t, you mean.”

“No,” she says carefully. “Can’t.”

“What do you mean then?”

The Doctor sighs and looks at Yaz. “It’s just, it’s a long story.”

“Okay, I have time.”

“And I can’t find the beginning.” Her eyes widen slightly, like that addition is scary rather than slightly nonsensical.

Yaz considers, then she says, “Let me help you then: Who is Koschei?”

Graham jolts. “Yaz.” He reaches out a hand to Yaz to stop her. “Yaz, yaz, maybe let’s not–” He looks at the Doctor, but she just laughs a little. It sounds bitter but it’s not the reaction he feared so he slowly drops his hand.

“Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor says, pinning Yaz with a slightly lopsided gaze, somewhere between adoration and exasperation and all the blood on her shirt. “I can count on you to find the beginning. Or, well, _a_ beginning, maybe.”

“Good.” Yaz shifts like she’s making herself comfortable to sit here for a while. “Tell us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kinda let it drop with the 'show dont tell' here. i kinda do a bit more telling than i usually try for. im not super good at graham pov. or maybe i didnt try super hard oops  
> i kinda like it that the tardis is like the only person the doctor listens to when they tell her to do something. still most of the time she doesnt but if there's anyone she'd listen to it's the tardis. thats sort of cute
> 
> also may i recommend this amazing fanvideo i just found about 13: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1RtL3gJRv0  
> currently on repeat while i cry about it
> 
> also also i think ive figured out how to end this, so 10 chapters it will be probably
> 
> also also also let me know what you thought :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which i badly recycle some of 11's best lines. sorry
> 
> also tw dissociation again. and not being able to refuse a situation because you dont know whether it's allowed

“Ko–” the name twists around her tongue and she drops it like hot embers. “It’s the Master.”

The three of them recoil a little. Wow, that’s easy, she should use that more often–

_hey! careful_

“It’s who the Master was before he was the Master.”

“You were friends.”

“Yes.”

“When he said you two go way back, is that what he meant?”

She sighs. “Partially. We–” She falters, searching for words, a way to start. ‘Friends’ doesn’t _exactly_ cover it. “We were friends, a very,” she takes a deep breath, “ _very_ long time ago. Now, we’re... not friends.”

_yes ‘not friends’ covers it so much better_

“We have history, is what he meant.”

“What did you mean he’s dead?”

She frowns. “He’s not dead. Even if he was," she mutters, "would be a miracle to get him to stay that way.”

“Then why did you say that?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did. You said the fields don’t exist and those friends are dead. What did you mean?”

She freezes, grasping back for the memories of what exactly she told them but it’s fuzzy, like she can see the outlines of the memories but not their contents. “It’s a long story.” That works. Those words are starting to feel like a really good fallback option. They even sound like a real answer!

Yaz crosses her arms. “You don’t actually believe that’s enough of an answer, do you?” Well, she had been sort of hoping. Apparently it shows on her face because Yaz prompts, “Those things you were describing. The fields, the trees, where is that?”

“Is that your home?” Ryan asks.

“Guys, guys,” Graham sticks out a warning hand, “maybe let her be, yeah?”

She looks at Ryan with unblinking eyes, not really seeing. “Yes, Ryan, it’s my home.” Her voice is flat.

“What did you mean, it doesn’t exist anymore?” Yaz insists.

She turns to Yaz, unblinking, still. “I meant that it doesn’t exist anymore.” Her voice is surprisingly even for this topic she’s avoided for weeks and is now so easily talking about. She can’t even imagine how it ever seemed hard. Just answer their questions. It’s really easy.

Graham shakes his head, not understanding. “What, what does that mean, Doc? Come on–” He cuts himself off, seemingly not knowing where he was going with the sentence. She doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t know where he was going with that sentence.

“Gallifrey –” Look at how easy that name is to say! Doesn’t taste like ash at all! Just sounds like a regular word! Why had it ever seemed hard to say? “– burnt.” She smiles comfortingly. It does not seem to comfort them much. They move away, Ryan twists around to face her, all of them creating distance.

“What,” Yaz stammers, eyes wide, “what do you mean, burnt?”

She holds out her hands to them, trying to reassure. This must be an upsetting thing for them to hear about.

_this should be an upsetting thing for you to talk about,_ the Tardis says, narrowing her not-eyes.

“The fields, the woods, the cities, the people,” she waves a hand, “woosh. Up in flames. The Master did it. That’s the message he left me. To say he did that. And it’s really funny because,” she drops her head in her hands, shoulders suddenly shaking with giggles, “he looked so upset about it!” She looks up at them. Isn’t this the most hilarious irony they’ve ever heard? “He wants to think he’s this big bad guy. The first time, he was all ‘oh you must have felt like god burning them all’ and I was all upset because,” she waves a hand dismissively “I was young and very dramatic in those days and now he’s done it himself and he’s completely,” she gasps for air, “completely miserable!” She doubles over, pain no match for blood loss and grief-fueled hysteria. “What a loser!” 

The Tardis vibrates the wall, shocking her out of her giggle fit.

_this is not the right reaction_

“Oh isn’t it?” she says, a little too loudly, sitting up, something heavy and warm like smoldering coals in the pit of her stomach, making her solid. “Did you prefer the endless dragging you back there to wallow in it? Or did you prefer when I kicked you in your open wounds because you said a thing I didn’t like? Or when I spent Rassilon knows how many days and nights screaming and throwing stones at you? Were those the _right reactions_?” Oh, she’s yelling now, it feels good in her mouth, in her lungs, good to be loud, to be big. “Or maybe when I destroyed your entire console because Missy is a bloody liar! Or when I was trying to get myself killed before I met Rose! Was that the _right reaction_? Tell me!” She balls her fists against the floor. “TELL ME what would you _prefer_ I DO!”

She gets to her feet. The others scramble up, ready to catch her when she falls, but she doesn’t. She’s good, she’s fine, a little wobbly, but fine. Ryan is right next to her, picking up the bloody coat she dropped. The Tardis doesn’t respond because she knows the Doctor is right.

_i did not say that!_

“Your silence did.”

“You’re grieving,” Ryan says softly, just beside her.

She turns to Ryan, he pushes the coat into her hands and grabs hold of both her hands through the fabric.

“I get it,” he says, and his eyes say it too.

She looks at him and lets her hands be held. And then she looks down on the orange stained coat, soppy and sticky, and says, “Gross.”

Ryan drops his head as he giggles and she can’t help but giggle too. She feels a little drunk.

_that would be the blood loss_

“Doctor,” Yaz steps forward, hand outstretched but unsure, “are you okay?” Yaz, Yaz, always Yaz.

“I’m grieving,” she says, because that’s what Ryan said, and because it’s true, and it feels enough like an answer, and like it should explain things, and maybe it does.

“Why’s your blood orange,” Ryan asks, like he thinks it’s a weird colour for blood to be.

“The rest of the planet was already red, we needed some variety. I need a new coat.” She turns to walk back to the console room, forgetting Ryan still has her hands and losing her balance when she runs out of arms and gets pulled back.

“Whoa,” Graham shoots forward to catch her but Ryan is still holding on tight and steadies her. “Can you walk?” he asks.

She shoots him a look, offended. “Can I _walk_? Ryan, how old do you think I am? Twenty?”

“No, I mean because half your blood is on here.” He holds up the bloody coat, pulling her hands up along with it. Then he frowns. “Wait what– Twenty? _I’m_ twenty!”

“Psh, who needs blood.”

_little bit hubristic, don’t you think?_

She registers Ryan’s words. “Wait, you are?”

“Yes!”

“So am I,” Yaz says.

“You _are?!_ ”

“Yes!” they chorus.

“Wait, how old did you think we were?” Yaz asks.

“I don’t know,” she considers, “a hundred?”

“A hundred? YEARS?” Ryan says.

She shrugs.

“How old do you think Graham is then?”

“Watch yourself, son!”

“Well now I know to correct downward, so...” She scrunches up her face, “A hundred and–”

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Graham says.

“That’s not right?”

He shakes his head. “That’s not right.”

Yaz has to steady herself against the wall not to fall over laughing. It’s a better sight than Yaz, narrow-eyed and suspicious, glaring at her like she’d been doing ten minutes earlier. And also most of last month.

“Alright, alright, if you all wanna poke fun at my age–”

“We’re not poking fun!” Ryan tries.

“–then I’m gonna play my role of grandad and tell Ryan,” he looks at Ryan and his voice goes soft and serious, “to get the Doc sat down somewhere–”

The Doctor’s smile fades off her face.

“–preferably a chair, preferably comfortable, and Yaz,” he turns to Yaz, who puts her ready-to-be-of-help face on, “if you could find some medical supplies and some juice and,” he glances at the Doctor before turning back to Yaz, “maybe some custard creams.”

Yaz nods and with a soft beep a series of lights flicker on, pointing Yaz further along the corridor.

“Traitor,” the Doctor whispers, her skin feeling weirdly cold and like it pulsing with small electric shocks like her brain is trying to make sure her body is still alive.

_just let us fix you, and then you can fix me_

“I know what you're trying to do with that line and don't think it’s not gonna work on me.”

Graham and Ryan exchange looks, guessing at the conversation she’s having, and then both softly take her arm to lead her to the noose.

_don’t be dramatic_

She shakes their hands off her. “I can walk. And I’ll be as dramatic as I want.”

“Don’t we know it,” Graham says, and she squints at him, trying to determine if she can retaliate or if it’s a joke and she should not.

_it’s a joke. you should not._

Her hands look weird. They’re empty. Oh, Ryan has let go. At some point.

“Where’s my coat?”

Ryan holds it up with the hand he isn’t still holding out to her like she’s going to fall over. She’s not going to fall over. She’s fine.

“Do you have a living room?” Graham asks, “That’s not too far?”

She’s about to say _no_ when the lights on the walls turn on to point the way.

“Traitor.” Her voice doesn’t break because that would be stupid. Because nothing is wrong. This is fine. She is fine. She’s had way worse than this. She’s had way worse than this. This isn’t even that bad. It doesn’t even hurt that bad. It’s just stitches, it’s not that bad. This is not that bad. It’s not that bad. She’s fine. It’s fine.

She walks, presumably. Ryan and Graham move to a living room and she isn’t left behind, so somebody is definitely walking. Probably her.

When they enter, Yaz enters through a door at the other side of the room. Somewhere in the back of her mind, muffled from underneath some kind of brain pillow she thinks: that was fast. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks: is this Graham’s living room as well?

_no, this is one of ours_

Yes, his living room looks different doesn’t it, she thinks somewhere in the back of her mind. Is that television connected to any cable and if so, which one, because it’s been a while since she’s seen that one show from that one planet, you know the one.

_yes i do_

And somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks she wants to know what happened to the characters.

The tv springs on. _we’ll watch it after you get taken care of_

That makes her breaths all confused like someone’s tying knots in them, which doesn’t even make sense because breath is air it can’t have knots. And then between the buzzing in her brain that are probably thoughts or maybe bees? she finds a revelation.

“I can just regenerate.” A voice says the thing she was just thinking!

**_No_ ** _._

Yaz freezes, kneeling in front of her, putting the things she got on the low table. Oh, she’s sitting on a couch. When did she get on a couch. Yaz has really big eyes. Even more than usual.

**_please_ ** _don’t_

“It’s easy, I can just–” Her hands make a tingly warm yellow.

“Whoa,” Ryan makes a sound from right next to her. Oh, Ryan is sitting next to her. That’s nice. Is it? Yes, of course. He can grab her, he can keep her here. Why would he do that? Is he holding her? No he’s not, see it’s fine.

“Doctor,” Yaz says. She likes to say that, doesn’t she. She always says that. Like it’s supposed to mean something.

_it means she’s scared. you’re scaring them._

Get hurt, fix it, try again. That’s how it goes. Why waste time waiting for wounds to heal? This would be quicker. Easier.

_No It Would Not._

Graham grabs her hands, covering them, their yellow light peeks out from between his fingers.

“Doc, I don’t know what regeneration involves exactly but I’m gonna ask you, very emphatically, to please not do whatever this is.” He holds her shining hands up to her.

She shakes her head, he’s too worried. It’s fine. She does this all the time. She can just fix it. “I just fix my body.”

_Stop it._

“We don’t know what you mean by that. Can you stop this?” Ryan says, staring at her hands. She looks at his face. Oh, is he scared?

_yes!_

Did she scare him?

_yes you’re scaring them all. will you stop it?_

“Fine.” The glowing stops and everyone sighs. Except for her. Feels like she's swallowed her sigh.

“Thanks,” Ryan says breathlessly.

“What then?” she asks.

_yaz is gonna stop the bleeding and give you stitches and then youre gonna sit back and drink some juice and eat some cookies and youre gonna watch tv_

She squints. Is that right? Is that good? Is that the right decision? She can’t tell. She feels bad. Is it because of all that stuff the Tardis just said or is that going to make it better? Is refusing an option or–

“We’re gonna stop the bleeding and stitch this wound and then drink something and eat custard creams,” Graham says.

But she can hardly understand him over the bees in her bonnet. No, that’s not right. Brain! Bees in her brain. Buzzing.

She narrows her eyes at him. “You trying to bribe me?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Bees.

“I can’t be bought.”

_you can with sugar_

Bees bees bees.

“Okay,” her mouth says because her brain is full of bees.

Bzzz.

Bees, Yaz stitches the wound, bees, Ryan holds her hand, bees, Graham gives her juice, bees, the Tardis switches on the television, bees. It’s halfway through the episode that she suddenly has legs again, and arms! She reaches for a custard cream on the table.  
“He isn’t actually– they translate it as prince but it’s not really. There’s no concept in English, or on Earth. It’s very scandalous. Oh hey have there been English subtitles this whole time?”

“Yes, I kinda like the language actually.”

She smiles at Yaz. “It’s melodic right?”

“This is so weird, Doctor.”

She looks at Ryan, leaning forward on the couch and squinting like he’s going to figure out the mechanics of an alien pseudo-royal family by trying really hard. He won’t. But that’s not his fault.

“It makes more sense if you’ve seen it from the beginning.”

“Really?”

_no_

“No, it doesn’t. You’re right, it’s really weird. In fact! You’re missing the context to appreciate how weird this actually is. If you knew more about the mechanics of their royal house, you’d be even more confused.”

“Don’t think that’s possible,” Ryan says.

She bites into her custard cream, which is weirdly crunchy and crumbly.

_it’s a custard cream, not custard_

Oh, that’s right. You would forget that wouldn’t you, sitting on a couch, watching tv, “that’s a fish fingers and custard sort of situation,” she mumbles around the biscuit in her mouth.

“What is?” Ryan asks.

“Fish fingers and custard?” Yaz turns around from her spot on the floor, “Is that actually what you just said?”

“Not at the same time?” Graham asks, horrified.

“Oh yeah!” She grins at him. “You put the one in the other,” she mimes dipping.

“That’s disgusting.”

She frowns. “Rude.”

* * *

When the episode is finished all the biscuits are gone but so are the bees, so she jumps up, tapping Ryan’s shoulder.

“Come along Pond!” and then she freezes midstep because that’s wrong. New teeth, wrong mouth. This mouth doesn’t say that. She turns around slowly. “You’re not a Pond.”

“Noooo.” Ryan shakes his head. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

She snaps her fingers and points at him. “Wrong family.” She turns back around to leave. “Come along O‘Brien!”

“I’m not an O’Brien!”

She turns around again to roll her eyes at Ryan. “Oh, you’re not making this easy for me are you? Come along Sinclair then!” She looks at Graham and Yaz. “ _And_ O’Brien _and_ Khan. See this is why we go by team, or gang, or fam. Come on fam!” As she walks out the door and hears them getting up and following after her, the vaguely coherent cloud she’s been existing as for the past however long it’s been starts to coalesce into a shape like the Doctor again. A tiny bit. She’s missing the swooshing of a coat and the weight of her sonic in her hand, but it’s a start. It’s good to be in the lead again.

“So who is that?” Ryan asks, catching up to her as they make their way back to the console room. “I’m assuming Pond is a last name.”

“Not a body of water,” Yaz adds, joining them, Graham following just behind.

“Not a body of water,” she confirms. “They were my family. Amy and Rory and River,” she says the names slowly, feeling them out in this new mouth, this new body, feeling the memories they drag behind them resurfacing like they’re being pulled from mud, interacting with newer memories that haven’t yet settled, that are still whirling around in her fast-moving stream.

How familiar a name or action can be in one body, and then so far away in the next. New body, new muscle memory. It’s a good blank slate, important not to get stuck in the past. Important to let go of old endings and make room for new beginnings. But it’s also a bit of a shame. Having to dig through centuries of memories to find how a name used to feel in your mouth. Or how arms used to fit around you when you were a body of a different length and coordination. To imagine how those arms would feel around you now. To wonder if they would still fit...

But names! With names, she doesn’t have to wonder. Names, she can always make fit her mouth again. Because they deserve it. Every one of her friends deserves to have their name remembered and said with every mouth she’ll ever have.

The girl who waited, the last centurion, and the woman who killed the Doctor. “They were my family for a long time. I was basically an honourary Pond!”

“Sounds like something to be proud of,” Graham says.

“It is!”

“Where are they now?” Ryan asks. She slows her pace.

“They are,” Dead. Deep breath, “living the rest of their lives.”

“Without you?” Ryan asks and she turns around, smiles at him, it takes effort, and nods. “But that’s okay. That’s good. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“Them leaving you alone, that’s how it’s supposed to be?” Ryan says, incredulous.

“That’s how it works, Ryan. I meet people, I travel with them, and then one day, they leave.” Ryan looks distraught. “It’s what you’re going to do too,” she says gently. He shakes his head.

“We’re not gonna leave you!” Yaz says. “Never.”

She winces. It’s good she doesn’t believe in jinxes or else she’d have felt like Yaz just jinxed them all.

“You will. But that’s okay. It’s what we signed up for.”

“I don’t remember that bit,” Graham says.

“Not you, you signed up for all of time and space and no guarantee of safety. Me, I signed up for your company in the knowledge that one day I will have to miss it.”

“How do you live like that?” Ryan asks, voice rough.

“You live because, well, you have to.” And because one stubborn Tardis won’t let you die.

_don’t you forget it_

“And even if you know good things will end, that good people will die, or leave you, and it will make you sad, that doesn’t mean they aren’t here now, and that they can’t make you happy now.”

“We are here now,” Yaz says.

The Doctor smiles at her and nods. And then she turns around and walks into the console room, looks at the makeshift console, puts her hands on her hips. “I have a Tardis to fix.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look at that! it's the comfort part of the hurt/comfort! i finally got there! only took 10.000 words! i mean, sort of comfort, it doesnt feel very good. the next chapter might actually be more comforting. for the doctor anyway
> 
> not super satisfied with this but it is what it is and it's not gonna be better so
> 
> today i watched a bit of vincent and the doctor because of that pile of good things line, i wanted to hear how he says it (didnt do any good for my dialogue but oh well) and it struck me just how stark the contrast is between other doctors and 13, 11 specifically in this case.  
> i had the ending of vincent and the doctor open next to the ending of can you hear me and BOY does that make 13's issues super clear.  
> just Look at 11 hugging amy in that scene, next to 13 completely closed off, incapable to engage with graham at the end of can you hear me. it's AAHHHH  
> https://you-have-to-use-your-imagination.tumblr.com/post/623733384748892160/i-keep-rewatching-little-bits-of-old-episodes-to
> 
> so if youre interested in my rambly thoughts im putting them on tumblr because its probably a tiny bit more well-suited to it than ao3 chapter notes   
> https://you-have-to-use-your-imagination.tumblr.com/ramblythoughts


	9. Chapter 9

As a rule, she doesn’t do restful. However, the almost three weeks she’s been parked in Sheffield have been sort of... nice.

_oh careful, someone might hear you_

She smiles and closes a panel in the wall where she’s just been adjusting a wire. “How’s that?”

The Tardis whirs appreciatively.

With a lot of care and precision and also, unfortunately, pain, the parts of the Tardis torn apart by the explosions have been repaired over the last couple of weeks. All of the different systems have been properly reconnected. And as she’s been repairing the Tardis, her own wounds have been healing as well. The two of them are almost–

_ready to go_

“You’re antsy.”

The relative calm she’s found here, being docked at Park Hill, feels like the first cold nights of winter making the pond freeze over. It looks calm and still and solid but sooner or later, some kid is gonna come by, throw a snowball or chunk of ice, or poke it with a stick, or test it with their foot, and under the slightest pressure that serene icy surface reveals itself to have only been a couple of millimetres thick and the water beneath as just as ready to drown you. The sedate surface is an illusion but if no one touches it she can suspend her disbelief for a little bit longer. She climbs out from underneath the console.

_you’re avoidant_

The new console has turned out really nicely. She’s resituated some of the more important buttons and levers so she doesn’t have to run around as much while piloting. Ryan and Yaz have helped in the reconstruction, providing extra hands when her own two fell short – as they often do, two hands is not a sufficient amount of hands – and making suggestions.

“What if we put that thing–”

“Refueller button.”

“–next to this thing over here?”

“Temporal grace circuit. Not if we want the fabric of reality to stay intact. Although,” she cocks her head at Ryan, “how attached are we to Cardiff? Because I do agree the refueller button looks way cooler over there so it might be worth–”

“Hello,” Yaz cuts in quickly, snatching the refueller button out of the Doctor’s hands, “heard some worrying suggestions,” she shoots a severe look at Ryan, “so I’m just here to remind anyone who needs reminding that we’re not wiping Cardiff off the map, okay?”

The Doctor shrugs apologetically at Ryan.

“Okay, what about these things–”

“Thermocouplings.”

“–next to _that_.”

“Atom accelerator. No, that would definitely threatens Cardiff’s continued existence.” It wouldn’t. But it would look silly. Thermocouplings next to the atom accelerator? What are you thinking, Ryan? We’re trying to look cool here, not like some grandpa from the 6250’s.

Graham didn’t feel much for trying to parse sentences like “I think I can fix that slight pull to the left the Tardis has whenever we land in the 19th century if I route the exotron pulse through the tachyonic visualiser instead of the tachyon beam collimator but then the exotrons aren't compatible with the- YAZ, have you seen the exotron modulator?” so he did his part by repainting the outside of the Tardis.

“Also, Graham, could you check the bulb on top? Might need replacing.”

They’ve been backing off with the questions lately, asking less insistently, allowing her her half-answers and diversionary tactics. Maybe the things she told them about Gallifrey have sated their curiosity, maybe the way she told them has tempered their enthusiasm, or maybe they’ve accepted grief as an acceptable explanation for her behaviour and as a result guessed which topics might upset her. Which is good because she has no clue.

Ever since crashing the Tardis here, or maybe for a while before that, (maybe a long while), she’s felt like she’s been standing on one leg, trying to keep her balance around this space inside her that is like a black hole. She can’t see the thing, doesn’t know what’s inside, but it warps her around it, making her too fast or too slow or too sharp or not right or not here and off-balance. It makes her not trust herself. If she doesn’t know if she’ll suddenly go wrong, she doesn’t know that she can keep her fam safe. And if she doesn’t know that, she’s not going to take them anywhere. She might not be able to guarantee safety but she’s not going to risk their beautiful lives like that. She’s staying put until she’s figured it out.

“Doctor!” Ryan pokes his head through the door from outside. “We’re going out for ice cream, you coming?”

“Yes!” She wipes her hands on her trousers and rolls her sleeves down. She still hasn’t got a new coat. They went shopping for one but she didn’t find any that met her criteria. ("Long, it has to flap behind me when we run."

"Like a cape," Ryan nods.

"Yes, also pockets! Lots of pockets. Big ones.")

As they walk to the ice cream shop that the four of them have been single-handedly keeping in business over the past couple of weeks, they talk about Earthly human mundanities, jobs and friends and complaints about things that don’t really matter like road work on an intersection making their walk five minutes longer. All of them easily sailing around the icebergs of Things They’re Not Talking About that are floating through their conversations, as they’ve been doing for three weeks. It’s a nice change of pace that none of the conversation topics are things that are imminently going to kill them.

They get ice cream and judge each other’s flavour choices and not one person more is going to die if she picks avocado over chocolate.

“You’re mad, Doctor, ice cream isn't meant to be made of vegetables.”

“How many times, Ryan, it’s a fruit."

“Isn’t it a drupe?” Yaz asks.

“What the hell is a drupe?”

“Language!” chorus Graham and the Doctor.

“Have I got two grandads now?”

“You know, like an apricot,” Yaz says, licking her ice cream, unbothered.

“It’s a berry,” Graham says.

“Strawberries! Raspberries! Blackberries! You might be sensing a pattern! Avocadoes are not berries!”

And the Doctor listens to them argue and licks her avocado ice cream, which is not very good, and she agrees with Ryan that avocadoes are vegetables and that they shouldn't be put in ice cream, and she doesn’t say anything but no one has died because of her bad decision in ice cream flavours and that’s nice.

Life standing still feels like realising she’s been holding her breath for too long and slowly exhaling. It allows for the familiarity of routine, for knowing what to expect, and for variety within the repetition, instead of the surprising repetitiveness that mortal danger presents.

It’s sitting in the Tardis doorway watching the sun rise a few minutes earlier every day and waving to the girl who brings round the papers. It’s going to the same ice cream shop every day but picking a different flavour each time. It’s board game night at Ryan’s and Graham’s house always starting with tea and custard creams and good-natured teasing, always developing into the Doctor and Yaz becoming way too competitive and Graham inconspicuously moving anything breakable out of arm’s reach, and always ending with Ryan winning, regardless of the game.

It’s going for a walk and not knowing the route you’re going to take but knowing where you’ll end up. In the first week, walking around the neighbourhood with their ice creams, they’d come across a small playground with two swings that the Doctor had taken a shine to. Now some afternoons, always unexpected but never unwelcome, Yaz’ll swing by the Tardis, find her up to her elbows in Tardis parts and grease and say, “It’s nice out,” and inevitably they’ll end up on those swings, silently feeling the pull of gravity and their temporary defiance of it in their arms and legs and heads.

The conversation never matters, never corners her, never has her scrambling for explanations or answers or lies. It’s nice. It’s easy. It’s respite and postponement.

It’s borrowed time. Sticky on her hands like melting ice cream.

* * *

One afternoon, during the third week, as she’s doing maintenance – she’s got the time for it now – on some parts of the Tardis that hadn’t been hit by the explosions, she finds something strange with the engines. At first glance it looks like they aren’t even properly connected to the rest of the Tardis, but they must be, they wouldn’t have got off that planet if they weren’t. As she follows the wiring and figures out what she’s looking at, the realisation of what could have been fills her with cold horror.

If the engines had been connected like she thought they were, like she thought they had to be, like _she’d done it_ , the explosions of the temporal motors would have cascaded, exploded the engines too, and probably put the fate of the universe in the balance. Or at the very least, the fate of the quadrant they’d been in. The only reason that didn’t happen is because someone built a failsafe into them, stopping any malfunction in another part of the Tardis from threatening the functionality of the engines.

Someone had saved them. The Tardis is very quiet.

The Doctor takes a breath and says evenly, “Missy did this.”

The Tardis doesn’t respond because she doesn’t need to. She bites her lip, a mess of warring feelings making her fists clench, and without saying anything else she makes her way outside to find an unfortunate tree to kick.

A couple of dozen kicks later, when she’s just focusing on the pain in her foot and has almost forgotten what she’s even kicking a tree for, a voice comes from behind her.

“What’s that tree done wrong?”

She looks up to see Graham, gives the tree one more kick, and then turns around to face him.

“Absolutely nothing. Wrong place, wrong time for that tree.”

“That tree’s been here longer than you though.”

“Bad luck for that tree that I landed here then.”

Graham gives her a look that’s probably supposed to be meaningful or something. She hates it when people do that.

“You’re not a tree, Graham.”

He chuckles. “So nice of you to say.”

She nods absently.

“What’s this about then?” he asks, indicating the poor tree, just standing there impassively.

“I’m–” she grits her teeth and looks down, “–grateful.” There are weeds growing between the street tiles.

“If this is grateful I dread to think what resentful looks like.”

She shrugs, “About the same,” and sinks down on the curb. He sits down next to her, in a pointedly expectant sort of way. She glances at him sideways and reaches out a hand to tug at a dandelion. “The Master did something to the engines.”

He frowns, but she waves his concerns away. “A while ago. Maintenance. She did some things– changed some things. If she hadn’t, a lot more of the Tardis would have been broken.”

“More than it already was?”

She scrunches up her face. “A bit of the universe would have broken too.”

Graham widens his eyes. “If I ever want to know how the Tardis works, remind me that I don’t.”

She smiles ruefully. “I don’t know– No. I _know_ I wouldn’t have got back if she hadn’t done... whatever she did.”

Graham grimaces and then nods slowly. “You owe him?”

She shakes her head. “I doubt he even remem–” she cuts herself off abruptly, swallowing memories. “It’s not like that.” She dandelion stalk snaps between her fingers.

They both look at it for a moment and then Graham asks gently, “What is it like?”

“Nothing, I don’t know.” She groans. “Complicated.” The white dandelion sap makes her fingers wet and sticky.

“Any relationship with someone you’ve known that long would be complicated, I reckon.”

She looks at him skeptically. “Are you trying to give me relationship advice? You? With your not even 100 years?”

“Alright, alright! No need to be rude.” He frowns. “You’re worse than Ryan sometimes, you know that?”

She gets up and goes inside the Tardis without another word. He follows her, of course, leaning against the wall next to the door as she puts the dandelion down on the console, wipes her hands on her trousers and busies herself removing the zigzag plotter she put on the console yesterday that now rattles for some reason.

_custard cream crumbs_

“Custard cream crumbs,” she says, because that’s a nice crunchy sequence of words to say out loud and telepathy doesn't do it justice.

“You don’t like that,” Graham says, frowning like he’s trying to put a puzzle together.

She looks up at him, mouth open in shock. “I love custard creams!”

“No, I know that! I meant, you don’t like when I imply I’m older than you.” Doesn’t she?

“Well, you’re not.” She pulls the new and improved custard cream dispenser with her right hand while her left unscrews the zigzag plotter from the console.

_how is it improved?_

“Two at a time! Want one?” she asks Graham, holding up a custard cream. He holds out his hands and she throws it at him. He catches it.

“How old are you then, really?”

“Oh, I’ve lost count. Many times. And started over, or guessed, or just lied and then later forgot I lied.”

Graham makes a little noise of disapproval. She looks up. “What?”

“Slippery slope.”

“I mean, which calendar are you even working with, you know?” she says, pulling the lever loose and shaking it. “Some planets have days longer than years, some calendars don’t even count days or years, and you know what it’s like on the Tardis, when do you decide a day is Over?”

“After it’s saved, usually.”

She snaps her fingers and points at him, “Right!” She grabs a boring screwdriver, holding the plotter, now free of crumbs, to the console again. “And sometimes it’s easy-peasy lemon squeezy you’re done with a stern look and some peer pressure. But other times, you’re running around after some idiot who thinks world domination is a nice bar to try to clear, till you drop.”

“Till _we_ drop, you mean.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” she says, turning the first screw tight. “So how do you even count days? Let alone years. Hand me that screw?” she points at a screw lying on the console just out of her reach.

“Do you know how long we’ve been travelling with you?” He hands her the screw.

“What, you expect me to keep track?” she says, maybe a bit sharper than necessary, tightening the screw. “Amy and Rory, they were real good at keeping track. But then, they were a little bit different than most people I travel with.”

“Different how?”

She wiggles the plotter she’s just reattached and narrows her eyes. “It still rattles.”

Graham steps closer to listen and she wiggles it again in demonstration. He nods his confirmation of the rattle.

She throws up her hands. “Well, that’s gonna be annoying!”

* * *

“Almost ready?”

The Doctor takes off her soldering mask to see Yaz walk in, trying to hide the impatience in her face but being betrayed by her bouncing feet and swinging arms.

“Bored of home?” the Doctor asks with a precise casualness, putting the mask on the ground.

“No!” Not when you put it like that. “Eager to see more.” Yaz skips over to the console.

“Eager to get out from under your mum’s questioning gaze?”

Yaz deflates. “You haven’t exactly made it easier for me, parking right underneath our living room window.”

“Graham won’t let me park in his house anymore!”

Yaz sighs, absently flicking a switch back and forth she installed herself a week ago. “I don’t know what to tell her.”

“The truth?”

The Tardis laughs and Yaz gives her an incredulous look. “You can talk!” But then she softens into an expression that makes her look her age. “And if I do that, might as well say goodbye now because I’m never travelling with you again.” Her voice is wobbly,and when she looks up at the Doctor, her eyes are big and shiny, and they hold each other’s gazes for a moment. The Doctor blinks first.

“You should tell them.”

Yaz starts protesting but the Doctor cuts her off, “Yaz.” She stares at a thermocoupling that she’s only now noticing is slightly out of alignment with the others. “You should tell them.”

Yaz huffs and crosses her arms. “Why?”

Because I don’t want to have to tell them if you don’t come back. “Because they deserve to know where you are.”

Yaz doesn’t say anything to that. Just lets her arms slowly fall down and starts fidgeting with buttons again.

_oh rassilon, you’re contagious_

The Doctor suppresses a laugh and lets Yaz to her uncomfortable thoughts while she clears her tools away. The air feels like it’s _made_ of thoughts unsaid.

“Do you have a mother?” is what Yaz decides is a good question to break the heavy silence with.

She looks at Yaz, leaning against a pillar with the same precise casualness the Doctor tried to affect earlier. “Must do, mustn’t I,” she mumbles eventually, swiping some crumbs from the console. “Everything comes from something.” She zigzags the zigzagplotter. It rattles.

“Suppose so.” If Yaz is going to think any louder her thoughts are going to make themselves tangible and materialise out of thin air, falling clunking on the Tardis floor. She doesn’t even need to say what she says next, “Wasn’t what I was asking though.”

But she does.

“I know.”

Because saying something is different than letting it be unsaid, even if everyone knows what the something being left unsaid is. They fall quiet again. The Doctor trying to get crumbs out of the nooks and crannies in the console but only managing to push them in further.

“I don’t want to stop travelling,” Yaz says. _I don't want to be stuck here forever,_ the Doctor hears.

She leaves the crumbs alone. “They love you. They won’t stop you travelling if that’s what you want to do.”

Yaz looks doubtful. “You don’t know my family.”

“I’ve met them!”

“Once!”

“And they seemed very.... ”

“Protective.”

“Nice. I was gonna say nice.”

* * *

“Do you live in that thing?”

A voice coming from behind her makes the Doctor startle and she swirls around, pulling the Tardis door closed with the movement and yelling, “No!” before she's seen who she's talking to. It's Sonya is standing in front of her. “I’m repairing it.”

Sonya crosses her arms, putting her weight on one leg. “What needs to be repaired in a phone box?”

“The phone.” Seems obvious.

“You’ve been here a while.”

“It’s a very complicated phone. And it’s very broken.”

“Can I see?” Sonya reaches for the door but the Doctor blocks her.

“I’m not allowed to let anyone in the box. Um, legally. If something happened to you in there, it would be very complicated.”

“Legally?”

The Doctor nods seriously. Sonya narrows her eyes and steps back. “What could happen to someone in a tiny wooden phone box?”

“You’d be surprised.”

Sonya raises one eyebrow. “So how do you know my sister?”

With the sudden shift in topic she has the Doctor on the back foot again. “Uh, work. Her work. Not my work. Which is phone box repair.” She gestures behind her to the Tardis. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Sonya echoes slowly. “Why is it right in front of our house?”

“I don’t control where the box lands, just that it works.”

Sonya hums skeptically. “You know, all of this,” she waves a hand to indicate the conversation, the Doctor, the Tardis behind her, “is really suspicious.”

The Doctor leans back against the Tardis. “That’s a new one.” She needs to remember to take a look at the perception filter later.

“What do people usually call you?” Sonya asks, and there’s a slight smirk on her face like she’s already thinking of some things.

“Weird, is a popular one.”

“I could call you weird, if that helps.”

The Doctor crosses her arms. “Kind of you but I think I’m good, thanks.”

“Because you are. Pretty weird.”

She raises her eyebrows at Sonya.

“For one, no one repairs phone boxes–”

“I do!”

“–that’s not a job. It it was, I’d probably have done it by now. And secondly, I never see you leave this thing except with Yaz or Ryan or Ryan’s _grandad_. Which is weird.” She holds up a hand to shush the Doctor before she can say anything. “And don’t think I’m a stalker, you’re right in front of my house, it’d be impossible not to notice. So, you’re living in that box, but the thing is, that box is new. It came when you came. So you brought your own box to live out of in front of our flat.” She rests her case. “That’s weird.”

The Doctor opens her mouth to say something but Sonya isn’t finished. “And! You were here like a year ago when all that weird stuff happened at my mum’s job. What was it, spider infestation, or something?”

“Sort of, technically, I suppose, yeah.”

“See, that’s a weird answer!”

“I assume that Robertson didn’t face any consequences?”

“Who?”

“The owner.”

Sonya looks at her like she’s stupid.

“Of the hotel.”

“How should I know? Why don’t you know if you’re so interested?”

“Been away.” She taps the Tardis door. “Travelling.”

Sonya nods like she’s putting it all together. “Okay, so, you worked in pest control and now you repair phone boxes, which is not a job–”

“It is!”

“–and in between you were travelling?”

“That sums it up.” She thinks about it. “Pretty accurately actually.”

Sonya frowns, unsatisfied and then turns to leave before stopping herself. “No, hold on, that doesn’t explain anything. How are you and my sister friends? And why are you here now if you haven’t seen her for a year?”

“ _You_ haven’t seen me for a year. You don’t know she hasn’t.”

“No, but Yaz has been super busy. Out of the country for work, she has no time for– Oh my god! Travelling? Has she been with you this whole time?”

The Doctor jumps up. “No!”

“Three secondments! Has she even been on those? Mum’s gonna kill her!”

“No wait–” but Sonya is already running back to the apartment complex. No doubt to inform her parents. Oh, she’s messed up now. The Doctor rummages her pockets for her phone. She has to warn Yaz.

* * *

“Can we go _now_? She’s ready isn’t she?” Yaz gestures at the time rotor, pacing around the console room. The Doctor is making herself dizzy following Yaz with her eyes.

“You can’t keep avoiding talking to your mum forever.” The Doctor winces. Sometimes you just have to say stuff and hope other people don’t notice your hypocrisy.

Yaz stops, mouth slightly open in astonishment or protest, about to poke a stick through the ice. _Why not, we’ve been letting you avoid talking._ For a few long seconds they stare at each other. Then Yaz huffs and keeps pacing.

_she’s too nice to you_

The Doctor looks at the floor. When Yaz’s feet come into her line of sight again, they stop. “Come with me then.”

She looks up. “What?”

“Come with me to explain to my family where I’ve been for the past year.”

She stands up to be on eye level with Yaz, but in pushing away from the console also inadvertently steps closer to her. “I can’t–”

“You’re just as guilty as I am!”

“Of _what_?!”

Yaz waves a hand around helplessly indicating the Tardis, the travelling, their mutual unacknowledged running away, while she searches for words. “Of whatever they’re going to accuse me of!” she settles on.

“I don’t think me being there would help your case!”

“I think it would!” The Doctor shakes her head and Yaz puts her hands on her hips. “Why not?”

“I have a history with mothers.”

“What does that mean?”

“They...”

Yaz raises her eyebrows.

“They slap me,” she mutters reluctantly.

That draws a small smile from Yaz and she comes over to lean against the console next to the Doctor. “My mum’s not gonna slap you.”

“I accidentally kidnapped you!” She lets herself drop back against the console. “Landed you in the vacuum of space without a space suit, then stuck on a hostile deserted planet, and then took you and Ryan into 1955 Alabama of all places.” She turns to Yaz. “And that’s just the first day.”

Yaz’s smile turns into a thoughtful frown. “Never thought about it like that.” Oh no. “But you got us out of every one of those situations and safely back home! And my parents don't need to know the details."

Yaz phone buzzes in her pocket and she groans and fishes it out. She puts on her brightest, most agreeable voice to say, “Hi mum, almost home!” while her dark and defiant eyes warn the Doctor that if she’s going down, she’s taking the Doctor down with her. While Yaz tries to get out of a pre-interrogation interrogation by phone, the Doctor wonders how Yaz can look like the most oppositional person while sounding like the least oppositional person ever. When she finally manages to hang up, she sighs and looks at the Doctor pleadingly, who shakes her head, “Oh no. I’m not getting involved!”

“You _are_ involved! You’re the whole reason _I’m_ involved. You’re the entire involvence!” Yaz grabs her wrist. “Come on.”

“No!” She whines, trying to shake Yaz off but her grip is surprisingly strong. “Your mother has so many questions!”

Yaz starts pulling her to the door. “I know! That’s why I want you with me to answer at least half of them.”

“She’ll want to know personal things, like, who I am! Or where I’m from!”

Yaz nods enthusiastically. “Yes, and you can tell her you’re an alien from space!”

“Oh come on, she’s never gonna let you run off with me if I tell her that, she’d be mad!” The Doctor stumbles, being pulled backward by her own force as the counterweight of Yaz pulling her arm suddenly disappears. Yaz turns around, looking altogether way too smug.

Oh.

_wow she played you_

The Doctor’s mouth falls open and Yaz smirks at her like she’s finally won one of those board games. Her phone buzzes again but she doesn't pick it up, doesn’t take her eyes off the Doctor. “So? Wanna set some coordinates or are we gonna go for tea at mine?”

She closes her mouth and scrunches up her face. This is not going the way she wants it to. "No- wait- but-" she stammers.

_come ooooooooon, let’s go!_

“Oh that’s not fair!” She throws up her hands. “Two against one!”

Yaz grins up at the Tardis and looking at the way her face lights up with excitement the Doctor know she’s already lost.

“This is blackmail,” she mutters. “I’m being blackmailed.” But she can’t suppress her own reluctantly excited grin as she turns around to set a destination. The moment she touches the controls the entire console room lights up and a symphony of beeps bounces around them. Yaz runs around the console to face her, leaning forward eagerly. “Where are we going?”

“Call Ryan and Graham!” Yaz has her phone out before the Doctor can finish the sentence. “Tell them to hurry!” She starts putting in coordinates, the buttons lighting up beneath her fingers and the Tardis flipping around a couple of numbers to fly past some of her favourite spots. The Doctor lets her.

Yaz is counting the boys down through the phone, “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, if you’re not here by zero we’re leaving without you!” She grins at the Doctor, who grins back, letting the Tardis’s and Yaz’s excitement remind her what the pull of adventure feels like.

_finally!_

“Fourteen, thirteen, twelve,” Yaz holds the phone away from her ear as Ryan shouts at Graham to hurry up so loudly even the Doctor can hear it.

Half a minute later they crash through the doors in a pile of limbs and bags and yelling. Ryan’s holding one shoe in his hand. “Couldn’t get it on so quickly. We leaving?”

“Yes!” Yaz yells, her voice tripping over itself in excitement.

“Hold on to something!” the Doctor says.

The doors swing shut, the time rotors start up and then they’re off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the delay! i had deadlines
> 
> also, this is a lot of dialogue and very sparse, i should probably try to make it better or something but im so horrifically impatient and sometimes youre just uninspired and you know what you want to communicate but all the words you come up with are stale and then your sentences have an average length of like 4 words.
> 
> i like the stuff that happens in this chapter. it's like we can breathe. oof nobody gets hurt in this chapter. i dont super like how i wrote it. i think it could be done better. i mean, the stuff could be more fleshed out, like im just skimming the actual emotional things that i could be diving into. but like i said i dont have the patience. im sorry. also thats in line with this entire fic basically so 
> 
> but theres stuff i like, i like the tardis's playful teasing, and i like the doctor being interrogated by sonya and i like these lines: "you’re avoidant - The new console has turned out really nicely." because it's just like that cut in 12x7 where graham goes "travelling helps, keeps me from being stuck in the past" and you hear the tardis noise and the next shot is the doctor stepping out of the tardis in syria. subtlely is fine i guess but sometimes i really like being hit over the head with stuff and that cut makes me laugh every time.
> 
> also i like the doctor and yaz being disaster girlfriends enabling each other's bad habits. first i was writing the scene with yaz's parents but i only got a couple of lines in because i have no idea how that would turn out. none. i hope we get to see it. yaz's parents learning about where she's been and that she hasnt been on any secondments. i wonder so much about next series. like how are the fam and the doctor gonna reunite, how long will it have been for either party? will it have been the same sort of amount of time for both or not? has yaz's family learnt about the doctor in the meantime? will that throw fuel on the fire that is yaz? is yaz gonna confront the doctor? please let yaz confront the doctor!
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading. i hope it was still enjoyable even though it was a bit hmmmm rushed maybe. i have a sort of ending in mind but then first i have to find words to get to that ending and thats still a bit blank, and this ends on a sort of ending kind of note. so i THINK there will be a short epilogue-like last chapter but if it doesnt happen then this was it. i hope you liked this fic that ive been unsure about since the beginning and didnt always put the effort in it deserves
> 
> if youre interested in my long rambling pseudo-meta-y thoughts about doctor who (mainly 13 lets be honest) you can find me on tumblr: https://you-have-to-use-your-imagination.tumblr.com/ramblythoughts


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